LIGHTNING IN HIS BLOOD
by glass-jars
Summary: Gabriel is resurrected by Coyote, and begins to travel to Kansas. Meanwhile, the Winchester Brothers recover their fallen angel, and Chuck Shurley-resurrected and a little unhappy about it-records it all and makes some friends of his own. Will contain major character death. Chapter titles from song lyrics. LuciferxChuckxMichael, SamxGabe. Unhappy ending, major character death.
1. IN THE BEGINNING

As the angels streaked to the surface of the planet like flaming birds shot from the sky, Kali—Blackest Aspect of the Mother Goddess, Destroyer of Universes, Fiercest of Hunters—sat with crossed ankles in a dimly lit casino, clad in glittering tight fabric the color of blood, her curls held back by a delicate clip carved from the fang of a god. A bracelet of tiny black skulls clinked on her wrist, and its match adorned her throat.

In her hand, she held a vial. A long-forgotten vessel of clear glass, the deep crimson blood of an angel held within. She tapped one long nail against the stopper. Made to pull it out but changed her mind at the last moment, then folded space around her so she stood on a moonlit beach.

When she walked, it was as if she walked on an invisible pathway just above the sand. Her heels made no sound. She stopped at the edge of the waves. She observed the saline birthplace of many a god and goddess.

Kali raised her arm and let the vial of the Archangel Gabriel's blood roll from her palm into the sea.

"Consider my debt repaid."

It bobbed away in the darkness.

As it floated across the oceans—through ferocious storms and strangely still water alike, kept afloat by the tiny bubble of air just under the stopper—not a single creature dared approach it. Curious dolphins merely eyed it from a distance. Sirens heard the way its glass sang against the waves and dove deep down to watch it from below as it refracted sunlight into wine-colored beams. Sea otters, always eager for trinkets to play with, kept away.

Until eventually it rolled up onto a gravelly shore.

An old man, wearing torn jeans and a white beard that he kept short with a pair of metal scissors, reached down his wizened hand and scooped up the little glass container. He held it up to the hard, white light reflecting off the clouds.

He smiled at the vessel in his hands.

He threw the glass of it up into the roiling sky as icy rain, and tossed the blood down as rusty sand around his bare feet, coating the landscape for miles. He formed the resulting mud into the shape of a cocoon and filled it full of wild honey and snake venom and pebbles and the roots of nightshade and the seeds of apples and the blood of a fawn that had been run down by a logging truck. He drew red lines of black cherry juice and deer blood across the chrysalis of mud in patterns of trees and sigils and whorls.

He reached up and dragged hot white lightning from the heavens and threw it into his creation.

The entire thing contracted and vibrated and shook, and collapsed into the form of a man, tattooed and naked.

Gabriel's eyes flew open, sparking gold and electric as he gasped and arched his back, and Coyote smiled down on him.

...

"Dean, check this out." Sam waved his brother over. As Dean leaned down, one hand on his shoulder, to look at the computer screen, Sam continued. "This name look familiar to you?"

Dean frowned. "C.S. Lewis? Isn't that the dude who wrote those _Narnia_ books?" His fingers tightened on Sam's shoulder.

"Yeah." Sam pulled his blanket close about himself, and pointed to a line. "But get this, Dean." He briefly met his older brother's eyes, clearing his throat. "This so-called 'C.S. Lewis' is a _fanfiction_ author, presumably using their favorite author's name as a handle on the internet." He coughed, lightly.

Dean nodded. "Yeah, well, I guess it's not like anyone would mistake them for the real thing since... Well, the real thing is _dead_." Then he narrowed his eyes, skimming the top of the story. "Wait—Sammy, is this for those goddamn _Supernatural_ books? Why the hell are you looking at this shit?"

Sam rolled his eyes. He leaned back in his chair, shrugging Dean's hand off of him. "Because, Dean." He rubbed his eyes. "Garth pointed me to it and—Well, it talks about the angels Falling. Including what exactly led up to it. And more."

"Wait," Dean crossed his arms. "It's accurate?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah. Like _prophet_ accurate." He sighed. "And I double-checked it with the original _Supernatural_ books, and... The writing style matches."

Dean stepped away, shoving his hands into his pocket, and sat on the edge of the table. "Well, maybe it's just a hardcore fan with uncanny knowledge of everything we do?"

"How likely is that, Dean?" Sam ran a hand back through his hair, with a soft breath. "Anyway, when I say 'the writing style matches,' I don't mean it's mostly similar. I mean that every mannerism—the use of punctuation, the range of vocabulary words, the sentence variation—it's all identical. Exactly the same technique."

Dean closed his eyes. "Jesus Christ." He rubbed his face, and fixed his eyes on Sam. "But Chuck is dead."

"Exactly!" Sam spread his arms out wide, baffled and tired. He pushed his laptop away. "Chuck Shurley _has_ to be dead. Wait—" He frowned, eyebrows pulling together. "C.S. Lewis died. But _this_ C.S. Lewis is still writing."

Dean burst out laughing. "Initials, Sammy. C.S. Chuck Shurley." He tapped a finger against his eyebrow.

"No! Is it really that simple?" Sam leaned forward until his forehead rested on the wooden tabletop, and folded his hands against the back of his neck. "God this is ridiculous. How is it even possible?"

Dean hummed quietly—a few strains of "Stairway to Heaven"—and frowned. "Maybe Chuck never died in the first place?"

"But what about Kevin? There can only be one prophet, right?"

Dean pulled a face. "Yeah but—Kevin can read Enochian, sure, but that's all. He doesn't get weird bursts of prophetic vision. Maybe different kinds of prophets can exist at the same time." He tapped his foot against the floor, staccato and loud.

"Maybe."

...

In his small house, Chuck Shurley buried his face in his hands with a groan. His computer screen glowed at him, with the words of the Winchesters' conversation blinking black and accusing from a word document. He laughed under his breath. "You were right the first time, Dean. I died." He leaned back in his chair and pushed his unruly hair back from his forehead. "But God forbid anyone ever stay dead! No, that's much too easy!" He kicked at a leg of his desk. Lurched forward, planting his elbows on his desk. Rubbed at one eye, exhausted, a bottle of Jack Daniels within his reach.

His bible—which he hadn't read since probably before the Winchesters were born—sat gathering dust on top of a bookshelf.

In the flickering shadows, he whispered, "I don't want to be the final Prophet."

...

Gabriel cleared his throat. "First off, why am I naked? Second: Tattoos?" He paused. "And most importantly, why am I alive?" Dusting himself off, he rolled to his feet and set his eyes on Coyote, dark and a little accusing and most definitely confused. He crossed his arms and the red lines covering them seemed to glisten as he moved. Maybe that was because of the rain streaming over his skin but somehow he doubted it.

"Well, I make life. Not clothing." Coyote stroked his scraggly beard. "Those tattoos exist because your Soul asked for them, and you are alive because I created you."

Gabriel frowned.

He kicked out his bare foot and sent a rotting apple rolling away from him. It sparked where his toes hit it, and reddened and firmed, but the long winding asphalt of the highway bruised it up again. Gabriel blinked down at his foot. He looked back up at Coyote, whose eyes were the color of the still-raging rainstorm.

"Why did you recreate me?"

Coyote smiled. He reached a wrinkled hand out and set it on Gabriel's face. It felt hot and dry. "Because many have faith in Gabriel and many have faith in Loki." He reached down to pluck a pebble from the dirt-turning-to-mud and as he lifted it to eyelevel it changed. It didn't morph. It didn't poof. It just _was_. A flattish, ovoid mask, with a cold laughing face and a rune on its forehead. He held it out to Gabriel. The inside was mirrored.

Gabriel took it in his hands. "What do I need a mask for?"

"To hide your face."

Gabriel scoffed and looked up from the mask. Coyote was gone. Or maybe he had just taken the shape of the wind. It was hard to tell, with old gods. Gabriel shook his head and held the mask to his face and it seemed to cling to his skin and meld to the shape of his nose and mouth and forehead. He felt at the front—it remained the same. Smooth stone. Stretched mouth. Narrowed eyes. Norse on its forehead.

Gabriel peered down at his arms and his torso and his knees. The burgundy lines adorning him seemed alive. Perhaps a trick of the light.

"I don't even _have_ a soul."

He sighed.

"Or clothes."

Gabriel snapped his fingers. Nothing happened. He frowned.

Above him, the clouds twisted violet and black and silver. He squinted at the sky. Raised his hands, and snapped his fingers again.

An electric shock rattled through his veins and the clouds disappeared as his knees hit the road. He pulled in a rushing breath, staring down at the golden lightning arcing back and forth between his splayed fingertips. It flickered out but left his teeth on edge and the hairs on his arms standing up. Gabriel ground his palm down against the gravel. It hurt, and he hissed a curse between his teeth. There was a shard of glass with the crumbling asphalt.

He turned his hand over to see little beads of blood standing against the skin, interspersed with bits of dirt and tiny shards of rock. He brushed his palm off with his other hand. He pushed his mask back so he could tongue the blood from his hand. It tasted sharp and far too metallic and a little sweet. Like honey and pebbles and arsenic. Not natural.

Gabriel shoved his mask back down and turned his face to the now-blue sky. It seemed over-saturated—too brightly colored and strangely watery.

The sun hurt his eyes. That was new. He laughed low and hoarse and dark like the distant thunder.

"I forgot what it was like to be a god."

His eyes sparked with lightning and he stood, to walk down the highway until he found... something.

The taste of his own blood lingered behind his teeth.

He grinned beneath his mask.

...

This may be confusing but uh...  
All will be explained.  
Eventually.  
Oh God what have I started.


	2. THE CLOUDS ABOVE OPENED UP

Castiel waited.

He stood on the side of a road in Kansas and watched a crow pick at the remains of a dead brother. He wondered if cannibalism was normal among crows. Probably. He glanced to his hand, turning it over so his palm caught a few droplets of rain. He flinched at their cold.

A flash lit up his surroundings, and thunder rolled overhead so hard it shook his bones.

He waited.

Eventually, he imagined, a long black car would snarl her way toward him, with a very flawed man behind the wheel and his equally flawed younger brother riding shotgun. She would come for him with spinning tires and glistening silver handles and the Winchesters would shove him into the backseat and they would drive in uncomfortable silence but for the sound of the Impala's engine and Johnny Cash.

He sat on the edge of the road.

He waited.

Castiel's teeth continued to rattle in his skull as the storm passed above him. Crows cawed at him from the treetops. He greeted them, voice hoarse and croaking. He sounded like them. They left. He picked a few ragged dandelions from the gravel beside the asphalt, and worked them together and together and together until he held a loop wide enough to place on top of his head like a wilting halo.

He waited.

A blue jay threw her chainsaw laugh at him from the undergrowth.

He continued to wait.

Until eventually, as the moon rose, he began to walk.


	3. A SNAKE IN THE GRASS

Gabriel felt fairly sure he'd caused a car wreck just by existing.

He grinned to himself, as the sea air cooled his back, whipping fast and violent from the ocean's surface. He walked along the edge of a cliff. Waves stroked the rocks below, gently, and sang to him with their whispers. He tossed round rocks down into the curling wet arms. He might have seen a mermaid, at one point, who reached for him. But he couldn't be sure. Could've been a clump of seaweed. Or a dead body. He shrugged it off.

A semi-truck rumbled past, making the gravel around Gabriel's toes dance. The driver honked at him as she passed, and the sound smeared through the air loud and unpleasant. Gabriel raised his middle finger like a flag and hoped she saw it in her rearview.

He wore the mask.

Because he had nowhere to store it and would rather not carry it. He wanted his hands free just in case something caught his eye.

Besides, the mask made him seem extra strange to the passersby on the highway.

He snapped his fingers periodically, discovering what he could and could not do.

He could not heal the gash he sustained on the bottom of his foot with a snap. But if he pressed his fingers to it, lightning snapped back and forth and stung and itched but laced up the wound until it disappeared.

He could, with his clicking fingers, make a flower wither away into black dust.

He could also cause the engine of an abandoned van to explode. Violently. But he threw up almost immediately afterward, so he decided that pyrotechnics weren't the best use of his powers.

He could not create. So still no clothes.

However, he could manipulate. He found a tattered piece of metal and with one snap it became a little shiny whistle. He twirled it between his fingers while he walked, and occasionally blew hard into it so it screamed and sent flocks of birds into the vibrant pink sunset.

There were things he could do without snapping. Healing was one he'd already figured out. It seemed to work fastest when he used spit. Experimentally, he picked up a shard of glass from a broken beer bottle on the side of the road and sliced his thumb open. It bled brightly and he flicked a few drops of it to the ground. He stuck his thumb in his mouth, licking at the cut skin, and when he pulled it out—though it glistened with pink-tinged spittle—it was unblemished and tingled with electricity.

He found he could spit lightning.

He did so to annoy the crows.

It was a little like using a TASER, but with his mouth.

Gabriel killed a frog with it and laughed at how close the situation came to irony.

He could also gather electricity on his fingertips, 'til it built up into a tiny ball of golden-white static, and he could throw it or drop it or let it dissipate or shock whatever he touched, including himself. He thought it was much better than Thor's control of thunder and lightning. Much more subtle. He could give a very startling handshake if he wanted, whereas Thor would just... What? Electrocute someone to death with a bolt from the heavens. _Lame_.

He gathered a palmful of the stuff after great concentration and exertion and threw it into a pool of water between narrow trees, killing several fish and other creatures, as well as a duck floating on the surface.

Then he used it to revive a doe's stopped heart. She bounded off into the road and got run down by a truck which careened off into the undergrowth with a heavy dent in its hood.

He almost threw up again, after using so much energy, but he took deep breaths of the salty air and leaned up against a burnt tree, knees shaking. He backed into the forest before the owners of the now-totaled truck saw him. He didn't want questions asked of him.

Like, "Why are you naked?"

"What the hell are you doing walking down the highway like that?"

"Why are you wearing that strange mask?"

"What do your tattoos mean?"

"Did you startle that deer into the road?"

No, he didn't want to talk to them. So he wound his way through curling ferns, dragging his fingertips along the rough bark of tall cedar trees and evergreens. The animals avoided him. Leaves crackled beneath his feet and shriveled up and died and then immediately went green and fresh again as he left them behind.

It began to rain, and he found a clearing, and he lay down on his back in the unfamiliar flowers and scratchy grass, and let the water from the skies pour down on him.

Around him, the little plants writhed.

...

The double flash of lightning outside of his window caught Chuck off guard—he flinched, nearly falling from his chair. The following roar of thunder sent the whole house trembling, and his shot glasses clinking. He _did_ fall from his chair, then, catching the bottle of his drink of choice with one flailing hand. He caught his Jack Daniels before it hit the floor. And he lay there a moment.

"Is weather contagious?" He stared up at the ceiling. Another flash—brighter than in any thunderstorms he'd seen before, and then a long rolling snarl that made him wonder if his windows might shatter.

His broken television buzzed and flickered in and out of life, until it finally settled on gray feedback.

His kitchen lights popped out.

He rolled to his feet with a groan, and checked to see if his laptop computer was hooked up to a circuit breaker. It was. At least, as far as he could tell. He didn't exactly have a way with technology. But he was pretty sure a power strip counted as a circuit breaker, in the case of a power surge. Hopefully.

The next lightning strike, he happened to be looking out his window. He flinched, and watched it arc down from the clouds and dwindle into the sky, blinding and blue. The window rattled when the thunder boomed, and Chuck jumped back with a sharp intake of breath. Somehow the thunder startled him more than the lightning—though both sent his heart racing.

He poured himself a glass of whiskey and sipped at it. The late Bobby Singer would laugh if he saw the way Chuck nursed that drink, but Chuck didn't really give a shit at that point. He sat on his couch with the chipped tumbler clutched in his hands and through the front window he watched the rain slam down against the pavement outside, ripping leaves from trees and drumming against the roofs of houses and pummeling the dry grass and dirt of his dead yard into runny mud and torn up vegetation.

Never had Chuck seen a storm of such proportions.

He watched the neighborhood shut down as people ran inside, stayed inside—any traffic there had been before stopped completely. No one wanted to drive in that weather.

He grabbed his old radio and twisted the knob, drawing the antenna out completely and setting it on the coffee table. He filtered through channels 'til he found the right number, and tilted the antenna back and forth, back and forth, until the static lessened slightly. He unplugged the television. The white noise made it hard to hear.

"This is Mark and Tony, and we're experiencing what may be the biggest storm in decades! What're the professionals saying, Mark?" The radio hissed.

"Well Tony, my mom is calling it biblical!" Chuck snorted to himself on the couch.

"Biblical might be the best description, so far. It appears to be spanning several—" The radio buzzed out for a moment into crackling as thunder shook the house. "and it's highly recommended you stay inside if you get this radio station. Pretty much our entire broadcasting area is under the storm's radius."

Chuck let out a low whistle, and went for a gulp of whiskey. He found the glass empty, so he reached for his Jack Daniels and took a swig straight from the bottle.

"Nothing's been struck yet but you're all—" The speakers popped. "—Lord Almighty, I hope it lets up before I go home. Wouldn't want to drive in the mess this is quickly becoming!"

In the distance, Chuck heard the cry of the train, and wondered what it must be like to ride through a storm like that. Probably amazing. If not slightly terrifying. Though, he thought that he might feel safer if he were on a train or a in a bus.

"How's traffic, then, Mark?"

"Well Tony, it's nonexistent. From what our cam can see. Granted, on top of a building, all it's really getting is a lot of _wet_." One of the hosts—Chuck had no clue which one; they sounded the same to him—laughed.

Chuck gave a weak, nervous giggle. So much rain had fallen so quickly that the storm drains began to spit up water in gushes. A cat cowered underneath the neighbor's rose bushes, fur plastered to her sides and eyes wide. Chuck felt sorry for the poor thing, but there was no way he'd venture outside just to grab a cat who'd probably scratch him and then puke on the carpet.

He sighed.

"_Dangit_."

Leaving Mark and Tony to babble on the radio, Chuck tied his bathrobe tight and shoved on his galoshes—God knew why he even owned them—and grabbed his umbrella. Turned out the umbrella had a hole in it, but it worked well enough while he ran across the street with a box under his arm. He managed to somehow scoop the petrified cat into the box with one hand, and shoved the lid on just in case. He bolted back across the street, pelted by rain, and slammed his way into the house as a fork of lightning illuminated the neighborhood like a floodlight.

The cat yowled when the thunder came, and he let her loose into the bathroom.

When he set a Tupperware container of water and a little bowl of canned tuna on the tile flooring of his bathroom, he found the cat shivering in the tub. He shut the door behind him and sat on the floor. "C'mere." He held his arms out. She stared at him with one copper eye and one black.

A little disturbed, but no less determined, Chuck clucked at her. "Come on, kitty. I'm not gonna hurt you. I just wanna dry you off a little." He chewed on his lip and made a kissy noise in her direction.

Her ears flicked forward and she slithered out of the tub, toward him, with water dripping from her whiskers. She left little muddy paw prints on the tiling.

"That's right." Chuck grabbed a towel from his laundry basket beside the sink, and held it out to her. She sniffed it, and he pulled her into it, and rubbed her down until her brown-black fur stuck out in all different directions. She glared up at him and he laughed.

The bathroom light went out.

"Shit!" Chuck bumped his head on the edge of the sink as he stood, and clutched at it with a hiss. He opened the bathroom door and shuffled out into the hall. Every other light was out as well, and he heard absolutely nothing. Not the radio, not the hum of the refrigerator, not the buzz of his space heater. He sighed. Somehow, without the electricity, he felt that much more alone.

He walked to his bedroom. The cat padded behind him. When he sat on the bed, she jumped up beside him. He pulled her close, since he was already damp, and stared out the window at the raging storm. She purred against his chest.


	4. OH, THIS PLACE

_Yoooooooo I'm taking advantage of my cousin's Wi-Fi right now to update! We don't have internet in our new (shitty) apartment, so though I haven't been updating at all I can assuuuuuuuuuuuure you I have been writing. This story is gonna be at least fifteen chapters long, I'm guessing probably more around twenty, and once I get to school I'll be able to update more often because I'll have a steady internet connection._  
_So yeah._  
_Enjoy?_

Castiel buttoned his coat up for the first time he could remember. The wind whipped it out behind him and hissed underneath the collar and up the sleeves. He squinted into the rain. On the sidewalk, worms squirmed around, trying not to drown and ultimately failing.

Cars whizzed down the road beside him, sending up sheets of water in their wake.

Rain dripped from his nose.

A miserable, soaking jogger pelted past him, holding her iPod to her stomach, cupped in her hand rather than clipped to her shorts where it would be subjected to the elements.

Castiel pitied her. He felt fairly certain the weather wasn't normally like this in Boise, in August.

Thunder rolled overhead and he hailed a cab. The car skidded to a halt several feet ahead of him, and as he climbed into the back he growled, "Please take me to the nearest hotel." He pushed his dripping hair out of his face. The cabbie nodded his head and peeled away, sending a wave of dirty rainwater onto the sidewalk.

Castiel checked into the hotel under the name "Castiel Novak" and sat on the queen-sized bed in his underwear, unsure of what exactly to do while his clothes dried in the bathroom. He decided the television might be the way to go. He'd been rather cut off from the world for several days, and had no idea what might be happening in the country at large.

So he pressed buttons on the TV until it flicked on, and sifted through channels until he found one with a news anchor. _The Daily Show_, while amusing in a crass sort of way, turned out not to be what he wanted, so he continued to skim channels. He finally found the news—made clear by its combination of tired anchor and flashing banner proclaiming "FREAK STORMS PLAGUE THE WEST COAST!" in yellow on black.

He leaned forward, lacing his fingers together in front of his mouth.

The anchor tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. She let out a puff of breath. "Hello, Idaho. It's six pm and this is the news." She straightened her collar. "As you might already be aware, freak storms are sweeping the nation, from Seattle to Las Vegas, clear out to Roswell and even Denver." She straightened her papers in front of her. "If your town has issued an evacuation warning, do _not_ stay behind. Please try to find somewhere safe to go."

Castiel frowned at the TV.

"What is going on?"

He left the television playing quietly all night.


	5. NOISE AND CONFUSION

"Freak thunderstorms across the continental USA?" Dean dried his hands on the dishrag, and tossed it onto the counter before settling in the chair across from Sam. "What kinda freak?"

They were in a motel.

Sam nodded, with a soft hum in his throat. He shoved the newspaper toward Dean, and booted up his computer. "The entire West Coast is pretty much drowning right now, and half the Midwest is having these monster flashfloods because the rain is so bad." He tapped at his keyboard one-handed, chewing on his thumbnail. He snorted. "There's a flood warning active in Arizona and about five other states including like... the entire Pacific Northwest."

Dean frowned. He skimmed through the newspaper, eyebrows furrowed.

"Chuck Shurley's hometown has issued an evacuation notice." Sam's eyes flicked back and forth, as he read an article on his laptop. "Along with most of Southern California and about half of Washington State. East and west side alike. Funny." He tilted his head.

Dean raised his eyebrows. "I don't see what's funny about that."

"Not _ha-ha_ funny." Sam rolled his eyes. "_Strange_ funny." He clicked on a Breaking News link on The Spokesman Review's website, and found a similar one for The Seattle Times. "Usually uh... Spokane County and King County don't have identical weather. Even when it storms on both sides, it's not like this." He scrolled through a few pages he found through Google. "The mountain range separates them and makes a weird sort of insulated set of weather patterns, usually."

"Nerd."

Sam glared at his older brother. "Shut up, Dean." He stared at his computer screen. "We're in New Mexico, right?"

"Right." Dean stood and went for the six-pack of warm beer beside his bed. He popped the cap off with his mother's ring and took a swig. "Why?"

Sam sighed. "Look out the window, jackass."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Fine, bitch. Hold onto your panties." He turned saying, "It's sunny, so—"

Lightning split the sky.

"Son of a _bitch_."

Sam shot his brother a pointed grimace. "Freak thunderstorms."

Dean gaped out the window, beer forgotten in one hand. "It was sunny literally like... ten seconds ago." He shoved the window open and pressed his nose against the screen. "There were no clouds anywhere nearby." He whirled. "I mean, you were in the car! No clouds for _miles_. All sun and dust!"

"Yeah, Dean. I know."

Dean sighed.

Outside, lightning made everything metal shine.

...

Chuck hauled his suitcase and his makeshift cat carrier onto the train. The cat mewled at him through the holes in the top of her box. As he sat in his assigned seat, he clucked at her. "It's okay Susan." (He'd named her after one of his favorite flowers—_Rudbeckia hirta_.) "We're just going on a little ride, okay?" A ride to someplace safe, he assumed. Someplace where the roads weren't washing away under the stress of three days' worth of hardcore storms.

The man beside him, rather stocky and a little bit chubby and most definitely old, said, "I'd call these storms the coming of the Apocalypse but there is altogether far too much rain and not enough fire and brimstone for all that." He had a gentle German accent and a funny little hat.

Chuck giggled, awkward and nervous. "No kidding." He sure as hell hoped it wasn't an Apocalypse. He didn't think he'd be able to deal with _another_ one. He lifted the lid of Susan's box enough to stick his hand in, and stroked her head with trembling fingers. "Though maybe it's a second Flood and someone's supposed to build an Ark!" That would be even worse than the Apocalypse.

The German man laughed. Chuck liked his laugh. It was very full and reassuring and reminded him of his grandpa.

The train's whistle blew in the same moment a tongue of lightning licked out from the clouds and forked off in six directions. Chuck just about jumped out of his seat. The German man set a steadying hand on his shoulder with a quiet chuckle and a "There, there," as the train pulled out of the station with a groan and a shudder.

It picked up speed, and rain trickled down the windows.

The whistle screamed again.

Thunder shook the overhead racks.

Chuck slipped down in his seat, propping his feet on the footrest, stroking Susan's chin, and let Susan's scratchy tongue and the German man's happy laugh lull him to sleep.

He dreamed of lightning.

...

Gabriel snapped his fingers.

A spark shot out between them, and the black clouds above slid back as if repelled, with a great grumbling clap of thunder.

He'd gotten quite good at clearing the sky.

But he liked dirtying it right back up.

He closed his eyes and focused and took a deep, deep breath, and when he opened his eyes again—glinting with electric fire—the sky had darkened and the clouds boiled above. Rain began to fall, and a crack of lightning sent a strangely distorted rainbow through the droplets.

He slipped into the river he'd been following.

The cold water felt good on his always-crawling skin, and against his hot eyelids, and in his dry mouth. He stayed under for as long as he was able. He opened his eyes and swept his fingers through the smooth green and brown pebbles of the riverbed and tasted the river water. It was clean.

He dragged himself out of the river after a good ten minutes, spitting water and sparks.

He rolled onto his back under the onslaught of rain and tried to direct a tendril of lightning in a certain direction.

The effort made him roll over and cough up a mouthful of watery blood, but the lightning went the way it was told. The resulting thunder came so loud it rattled Gabriel's ribcage. For half a second he thought his heart had stopped.

Thankfully he was wrong.


	6. PICK ME UP IN A PICKUP TRUCK

Castiel grabbed the phone in his hotel room and managed to get the machine working, so it rang jarringly in his ear while he sat in front of its little nightstand. When it seemed like no one would answer, a voice spoke. It was Dean. It was his answering machine, though.

"Dean." Castiel leaned close, cupping the receiver in his hands. "It's me." Then he hung up.

The phone rang less than a minute later and Castiel snatched it up, and cradled it to his face. "Hello?"

Dean's voice came from the speaker rushed— "Cas, buddy! Where the hell are you?"

"Idaho, I think." Cas looked around. "Yes, Boise." He heard Dean let out a soft breath, and continued with, "I'm at a hotel—"

"Yeah, we can track you from the number. Easy." Dean laughed a little. "What happened, after you left me and Sammy. I mean... falling angels?" His voice softened, went serious.

Castiel shook his head, fiddling with the phone cord. "I'll tell you later... Is that alright?"

"Yeah, buddy, it's fine." The sound of the Impala starting rolled from the receiver in Cas' hands. Cas smiled the tiniest bit and nodded, and set the phone in its cradle without another word. He sat on the floor and looked to the wide window, splattered all over with rain.

His stomach growled.


	7. I SWEAT MY RUST

Chuck rubbed at his face.

"Christ, it's really pissing down out there, ain't it?"

He looked up at the waitress. Half-smiled, and got out, "You should see my hometown."

She raised her eyebrows, as she poured his coffee. "Yeah?" She grabbed a pen from behind her ear and set the coffee pot on the table. "Where you from? Also, what'll you have?"

"Oh—" Chuck shrugged. "I'm from nowhere." The box beside him meowed, and he blushed. "I'll just have some toast and uh... some kind of fish for my cat, if you have any. Thanks, uh..." He squinted at her nametag. "Linda."

Linda snorted. "Suit yourself, mystery man. Be out in a jiffy." She sauntered away, taking the coffeepot in hand, and Chuck pretended he didn't briefly admire her butt as she left. He heaved a shaky sigh and dug the heels of his palms against his eyes. Susan chirped at him from her box. He stuck his finger through one of the holes in the top and she licked him.

"I know, Susan." Chuck poked her nose. "I'll feed you in a second."

When their food came, Chuck cleared French fries off the plate of fish 'n' chips and set the meat inside of Susan's box. She attacked it. He nibbled at the fries with one hand, spreading grape jelly onto his dry toast with the other hand. He sighed. The long train ride had set his stomach turning strangely. He was hungry, but food seemed more than a little unappetizing. Especially in the greasy interior of the diner.

Outside, rain drizzled down from the dull gray sky.

Chuck pulled his computer out of his suitcase and set it on the dirty table.

He had an email from his publisher asking if he was alive and if he would consider writing a continuation of _Supernatural_. He deleted it, as he had every two months since he'd returned to the world of the living. He checked the websites of several newspapers and news stations.

The storm was spreading.

Towns were emptying faster than ever.

...

Gabriel taught himself how the gods flew. Well... it wasn't flying, really. Not without wings. (And that was sure something—not having pairs upon pairs of Grace-fed ghost limbs made him feel strange and bare.) He gathered the folds of the universe around him and pulled and it reminded him of Star Trek, and found himself standing outside of a library in Multnomah County.

He promptly passed out.

And woke what felt like ages later, finally wearing clothes, in a small, stuffy room. He rolled his eyes at the pockmarked ceiling. The fabric of stiff jeans chafed against his skin, but his shirt was soft. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, and looked around the dim little space. He could hear the rain drumming on the roof but couldn't find a window. The walls were paneled in dirty wood.

In the dim light from one dusty, bare bulb in a lamp without a shade, he made out a shape. He cleared his throat and the figure looked around at him. She tilted her head so her long, obscenely straight white hair fell like a curtain from her shoulder, and almost touched the floor.

"Hey there." She stood, and was stupendously tall and willow-y. Definitely not human. "My name's Nizana." Her fingers were slim and dark and her face was spattered with freckles so heavy they made a mottled pattern on her skin. Her round eyes—a darker brown than her skin from what Gabriel could tell—reflected red in the lamplight like a cat's.

Gabriel slid out of what must have been her bed, and steadied himself against the wall. He stared at her for a few seconds before opening his mouth. "What the hell are you?"

"A member of the X-men, obviously." She gestured to her light hair, then simpered at Gabriel. "I'm a dryad." As if to illustrate her point, when she walked by the potted magnolia tree in the corner its white flowers unfurled and reached toward her, and the wood creaked.

Gabriel nodded. "That explains the plant thriving without sunlight." He crossed his arms.

"Yes." Nizana approached him, one eyebrow raised smoothly. "And what might you be?"

Gabriel grinned, craning his head back to stare at the ceiling. He shook his head, and looked back down, meeting her eyes. "Guess."

"Well, I'd say you're an angel but..." She shrugged and her hair rippled with it. "They're all flightless chickens right now. And I somehow doubt you're a demon." She gave him a long look up and down. "No offense."

With a short laugh—a little harsh, even—Gabriel stepped around her. "None taken. I think." He snatched a book from a short, sturdy shelf beside the table she had occupied:_ The Little Prince._ He flipped through it. "You can call me Loki."

"Oh." Nizana's lips pursed together. She crossed her arms and became closed off. "So you _are_, in fact, an angel." Her eyes narrowed. "You're supposed to be dead, Gabriel."

Gabriel held his hands up, backing away. "Whoa—" He set the book down. "How do you know that?"

Nizana tittered rather falsely and bitterly. "How could I _not_? It's in those books. Everyone knows, now." She planted her hands on her hips. "You're the creature who—even after he destroyed dozens of your fellow gods—let the Lightbringer go!" She stared at him. "Your supposedly weakened brother, Lucifer, who would have been so easily crushed under your heel... He walked free and wreaked havoc and you got to go and be dead until someone brought you back! What gives you the right—"

"Listen, sister." Gabriel held up a finger. "For one thing, Lucifer was grossly overpowered. Hopped up on demon blood and shit. Like—Kali couldn't even stop him and she's... You know! _Kali_!" He rubbed his hands over his face, squeezing his eyes shut. "I never stood a chance." He sighed. "For another thing, I didn't ask to be brought back. Really. I was fine being dead. But Coyote just... waved his magic wand and here I am! With strange powers I don't know how to use!"

Nizana huffed out a resigned breath. "You materialized in the middle of the street and passed out, so I suppose I'll give you the benefit of the doubt." She dropped down to sit on her bed and gestured at him to do the same. "So, Gabriel, what's been going on?"

"Call me Loki. Pretty please, with a goddamn cherry on top." Gabriel threw himself down beside her and sprawled out. His shirt—probably _her_ shirt, now that he thought about it—rode up.

Rolling her eyes, Nizana nodded. "_Loki_. What's going on?"

"First off, tell me where I am and then I'll dish."

"You're in the hidden back room of a liquor store in Portland, Oregon." Nizana crossed her legs.

Gabriel frowned. "That was _not_ my intention." He sat up and leaned back against his elbows. "I was shooting for Vegas."

"Well you missed." Nizana nudged him with her knee and looked at him expectantly, eyebrows up, arms crossed. Clearly wanting to know about things other than his initial destination.

He sighed. Sat up straighter, planting his bare feet on the ground. "Whose pants are these?"

Nizana scoffed. "My girlfriend's. Now come on! Tell me exactly what happened to you, and what's happening out in the world! Why's it raining like this!?" She gestured to the wall, and for a split second it seemed as if the hiss of rain grew louder. She widened her eyes at him. Gabriel rolled his eyes with another sigh, and slouched forward until his elbows rested on his knees, and propped his chin in one hand.

"Old man Coyote brought me back with his ancient powers, or something. Okay?" He cleared his throat. "And uh... I'm not sure but the storms seem to be following me." He shrugged. "Although, I can sort of control the weather..."

Nizana frowned. "Really?"

"Yeah, I can clear the sky pretty easy, and muddy it back up again. I even tried to direct some lightning once like brother dearest but... That didn't work out so well for my insides so I think I'll stay away from doing it again."

"Did you strike yourself with lightning?" Nizana seemed far too excited about the prospect.

"What—" Gabriel pulled a horrified face. "_God_, no. I threw up." He shook his head, looking mildly disturbed. "Anywho, I got these weird powers and they're a lot like the trickster powers I had before and blah blah blah. Long story short, that is literally all I know about anything right now." He cleared his throat noisily, and cocked his head. "So uh. What's this I hear about angels falling?"

"You're a terrible storyteller."

Gabriel snorted, and shot Nizana an unamused sneer. "So sue me. Angels?"

Nizana rolled to her feet, all grace and fluid surety, and stepped over to her tree. "You don't know, do you?" She cupped a white blossom between her hands. Glanced over her shoulder at him. "Some moron got tricked by the Word and shunted every angel out of Heaven." She heaved out a soft breath. "Thank God your Heaven is separate from the other Realms. I can't imagine how sore your big brother would be if Valhalla got all messed up."

"Thor can go suck a dick." Gabriel leered. "Who the fuck in their right mind listened to Metatron? He's like... the least trustworthy angel on the planet."

"Well..." Nizana fiddled with a thing branch. "One of your flightless chicken sisters told me it was Castiel. Know the name?"

Gabriel just let out a groan, and leaned forward until he sat doubled up, arms hanging so his fingertips brushed the floor. "You're kidding." He pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers. Took a deep breath.

"Oh no. Dead serious."

"That muttonhead—" He sat bolt upright, raising both hands. "You know what? I'm not even surprised."

Nizana laughed, low and tinkling. "You shouldn't be. Castiel has become quite infamous since you died."

"...How's that?"

"Oh," Nizana held up her hand, and folded a finger down as she said, "Resurrected the youngest Winchester—what a nightmare that was for us supernatural beings—" She folded down another finger. "Released Leviathan into the world." Another finger. "Tried to become God—if you ever see a stained glass window with a figure of what looks like Constantine, now you know why." She hummed. "He also went insane, at some point, and was the first angel in Purgatory." Her mouth twisted. "And now he's been tricked into destroying any semblance of order Heaven retained, sending every angel down to earth, vessel or no vessel." Nizana looked down at her closed fist, eyes shuttered. She raised her gaze to meet Gabriel's. "You may want to talk to him about making deals with strange men."

Gabriel gritted his teeth and gazed up at the ceiling. "That boneheaded—" He drew in a sharp, steadying breath. "I'm gonna duct tape his mouth shut, and this time it'll be permanent."

Nizana laughed at him. "Good luck getting through Dean Winchester."

"Oh, don't worry, honey." Gabriel looked down at the red snakes crawling down the skin of his right arm. "I've killed that boy more times than you can imagine and it was _so_ easy." He grinned, wide and feral and wicked. "If I have to, I'll do it again. Even if poor Sammy Winchester cries all night long."

Nizana wasn't laughing anymore.

In fact, she looked a little frightened.


	8. YOU COULDN'T HAVE IT ANY OTHER WAY

The familiar hum of a 1967 Chevrolet Impala growled up from the street below. Castiel pressed his nose against the window in his desire to see the car, and felt his whole body go slack at seeing her sleek black body sparkling in watery flashes of lightning.

He gathered himself, long-dead cell phone in one pocket and half-eaten bagel in the other along with a handful of change. He turned off the lights of his room, and made his slow way downstairs to turn in the room-key and make certain everything was paid for and dealt with.

The second he set foot in the lobby he heard his name shouted gruff and low. He half-ignored it, as he spoke to the receptionist and slipped her his key. Then he turned.

Dean stared at him. "Cas."

"Hello, Dean."


	9. MY BODY LIES INSIDE ITS GRAVE

Far away, in a coffin under layers of dirt, the dead body of a man once named Nick twitched, and opened his eyes.

Lucifer sighed, disappointedly. "You know, Dad, I would have preferred Sam's body." He kicked at the lid of his coffin until it cracked under his feet. "He's a lot prettier than this guy." He pulled at the wood and fabric, and clawed his way through the hole he made, shoving black soil out of his way until he felt a little breeze against his fingertips. It took surprisingly less time than he expected but maybe that was because he had big hands. He pulled himself out of the ground in much the same way Dean had all those years before, but was a great deal more sinister about it.

"Brother." Michael looked down at Lucifer, with a tilt of his head and a small frown.

Lucifer stretched his back until it cracked. "Don't ask _me_ what's going on." He surveyed the cemetery they stood in, all dirty gray headstones and shriveled trees.

"I can't feel my wings."

"Great." Lucifer kicked a pebble hard enough to send it flying out of sight. "Let's go find who brought us back as _humans_ and catch them on fire." He winked at Michael, and Michael shook his head. They stood together under the clear black sky, with the sound of cars rushing by in the distance.

...

Chuck pressed his forehead against the tabletop in the park, holding Susan tight against him.

His cursor blinked at him.

"Susan, I don't think this whole thing is going to end well." He rubbed a thumb over her forehead, and sighed. "What do you think?"

Susan meowed.

He giggled nervously under his breath. The cat dragged her scratchy tongue across his finger. He shut his laptop, thankful to be in the sun for once, and zipped it into his bag, and lifted Susan to his shoulder. It was nice to let her perch there and observe the world before he had to hide her to get into the motel room.

Her whiskers tickled his ear.

"I really don't wanna meet those two." he whispered. She licked his ear and purred in response.

He lounged on the picnic bench until tiny droplets of rain speckled the ground.

...

Sam ignored Castiel and Dean's mutual staring and said, "This 'C.S. Lewis' person started a new story." He squinted at the screen. "It has Gabriel in it. Which means..." He rubbed at his forehead, with a sigh. "He's alive?" He coughed. "And also... has tattoos."

"Dude, what the fuck." Dean elbowed Sam aside and pulled the laptop around so he could look at it. "How far's it go?" He scrolled down the lines of the story. He clicked to the next chapter and scanned it absently. And chuckled. "Wow, Cas, you really know how to be boring."

Sam rolled his eyes. He snatched his laptop back, and beckoned Castiel closer. "It's only got a few chapters. Looks like it starts from the first of the thunder storms on the coast of Washington." He frowned. "It's really behind though. Like, _days_ behind. Whoever's writing this, they're posting it after the fact."

" Cas hasn't even called us yet, according to the latest chapter. So maybe it's not actually Chuck, and we were idiots for thinking so." Dean raised his eyebrows.

"Yeah, or..." Sam shrugged. "Or, it _is_ some kind of prophet, and they're just editing it heavily and posting it late so no one has more information than they're supposed to? I mean, the Bible wasn't published ahead of time so why should the so-called 'Winchester Gospel' or whatever be any different?" He rubbed his eyes. "All I know is, it doesn't say a damn thing about who's writing it. No bio, nothing."

Dean snorted. He shook his head and stood, and wandered over to his too-firm motel bed, throwing himself down on top of the covers.

"So... this... thing. This story." Castiel peered down at the computer from where he stood beside Sam. "It's useless?"

Sam laughed, then coughed, and cleared his throat. "Yeah, pretty much." He clapped Castiel on the shoulder. "Good way to keep track of who's done what, though."

Castiel narrowed his eyes. "I suppose so."

"So, Cas." Dean spoke up from the bed, rolling onto his back and propping his head up against the pillow. "What happened?"

With a soft sigh, Castiel met Dean's eyes. He sat down on Sam's bed. Folded his hands together between his knees—a little like praying. His voice was quiet. "Metatron deceived me." His jaw tightened and he looked down at the carpet. (It was an ugly shade of yellow.)

"So... you all fell to our planet?"

Castiel tilted his head. "More or less. As far as I can tell, those of us with vessels were sent into them permanently and those of us without..." He frowned. "I don't know."

"Wow." Sam turned around in his chair to better see the both of them. "That's..."

"Awful?" Dean supplied. "Terrible news for us?"

Sam nodded. "I'm sure Crowley will be delighted, though. Knowing we have to clean this up."

"Either that or he'll just sit there crying."

Castiel shot Dean a curious look. "Crowley... crying?" He almost smiled. "Does this mean Sam succeeded?"

Dean waved his hand side to side, and pulled a face. "Not exactly. I stopped him from finishing the ritual but everyone's favorite demon overlord is surprisingly tender with half of a soul." He grinned. "Plus I can punch him and it'll hurt."

Castiel's mouth twitched at the corners. "I see."


	10. STEP AWAY FROM THE WINDOW

Chuck fretted, as he walked down the sidewalk with Susan in his hood. Even her warm purring against his back couldn't fully soothe him. He was just too preoccupied by the fact that in less than an hour there was a 99% chance he'd be face to face with Heaven's fiercest ex-Archangels. He wished his vision had given him more to go on than the first moment of their meeting.

He covered his eyes briefly, and in that split second his foot caught on a loose shard of concrete and he tripped into someone. The woman he fell into grabbed him by the arm and steadied him with a soft smile before going on her way. He smiled after her, full of awkwardness, and stuttered "thanks." She waved her hand dismissively, and while Chuck wasn't looking, he collided with a man's chest and nearly fell flat on his ass.

Chuck looked up at the male-model type man before him, and then to the disturbingly normal looking older man just behind.

"Oh God." He reached out for something to grab onto but found nothing. He floundered, arm waving lamely. "Please don't smite me—I'm very sensitive."

Michael's eyebrows pulled together and his forehead creased, as he frowned delicately. "We lack the power to smite you... So, I don't think you need to worry." He raised his eyebrows—and oh God he was a lot more attractive in real life than in type.

Chuck gave a nervous laugh. He stuck his hand out. "Uh—I'm... Chuck. Chuck Shurley?"

"The Prophet?" Lucifer finally spoke up from behind Michael, with a darkly amused glint in his eyes and the beginnings of a smirk.

He made Chuck feel like a piece of meat.

Chuck opened his mouth and closed it before finally getting out the words, "Yes? The uh... Prophet. Why does that sound capitalized? Does that sound capitalized to you? You make it sound all important." He swallowed down the massive sense of terror—or maybe vomit—filling his throat.

Lucifer laughed low and soft. He slid his arm around Michael's shoulder and leaned closer to Chuck. (Chuck did not appreciate that.) "You _are_ important, Prophet." His expression shifted, to something serious and stormy. Unamused. "You are also not supposed to exist."

"Oh—That's—" Chuck dragged his hands down his face. "Jesus. Are you gonna kill me?"

Michael shoved Lucifer back a step, sliding between his brother and Chuck. He murmured, "We're not going to kill you."

Chuck heaved out a shaky breath. "Oh, thank God."

"Don't thank our absent Father just yet." Lucifer elbowed past Michael and slid his hand around the back of Chuck's neck, and pulled him down the sidewalk. "I never agreed to this 'no killing' thing," He grinned—teeth flashing—down at Chuck. "but I might hold off until a later date."

Chuck closed his eyes, and let himself be tugged away. He drew mild comfort from Susan's presence in his hood and Michael's steps behind him.

Lucifer's fingers were very cold on his skin.

...

"Well, ain't this a party," Gabriel rubbed his forehead with a sharp frown and wrinkled nose. He poked at the sandwich in front of him. Voices rushed through his head in varying degrees of volume. It was an old familiar feeling, but for the ache it caused him.

Nizana raised an eyebrow questioningly at him, mouth full of bean sprouts and pita bread.

He gestured to his head. "Prayers." He grimaced. "They started filtering in last night. I guess the Universe figured out just where they're meant to go, now."

"Prayers to Gabriel or prayers to Loki?" Nizana shoved another hunk of hummus-smeared pita bread into her mouth. The girl could _really_ eat.

Gabriel stabbed his sandwich with the fork by his elbow, and leveled his gaze on her. "Both." He laughed, softly. "Someone's trying to sacrifice a goat to me in Oklahoma. What a dumbass." He rolled his eyes, picking at the dark crusts of his bread.

"People still _do_ that?"

Gabriel shrugged. "Guess so." He sipped from his cola, watching as icy water dripped down the side of the glass and onto his legs. He smirked. "I never understood the appeal of goats honestly. Always preferred a nice virgin sacrifice, personally. Always fun to seduce something before I eat it." He winked at Nizana.

She made a face of disgust before setting down her food. "Now I've lost my appetite. Thanks."

"Any time." Gabriel's smile widened. Outside, a fork of lightning came from seemingly nowhere and hit a power line. Sparks showered down to the ground and people scattered. Some screamed from shock, others looked up at the previously blue sky, and others just stood in place.

Nizana cleared her throat, and nodded toward the chaos. "Did you...?"

"Who, me?" Gabriel took a long sip of his soda, until the straw crackled. "I just brought the thunderstorm in. The lightning was a nice surprise, though." He licked his lips. Grabbed his sandwich—dislodging the fork—and took a voracious bite. He practically snarled.

Nizana narrowed her eyes at him. "...Okay."

With his mouth full, Gabriel smiled, and listened to the sound of sirens and thunder and panic filtering through the little café's windows.

...

"So..." Michael looked around the cramped, nearly empty teahouse. It was almost overrun with vine-y potted plants. "If you're supposed to be dead... Why aren't you? We, as Archangels, both felt your presence leave this... mortal coil, as they say." He reached forward and poured steaming reddish tea into each of the three teacups on the decorative table between them. He offered a cup to Chuck, who took it. It clattered against its saucer, when he nearly dropped it.

"I don't know! I finally went off to Heaven to get some goddamn peace!" Chuck realized he was shouting, and lowered his voice. "But someone said 'No peace for you, Chuck Shurley! You're the Prophet!'" Chuck threw an arm out, nearly spilling his tea. "I never asked for this! But apparently staying dead just isn't possible anymore." He focused his eyes on Michael, and they were wild and bitter and wide.

Michael shifted awkwardly, and sipped from his own tea. He thought it tasted awful.

Lucifer hummed. "You are a sad, strange little man, Prophet." He crossed his arms, leaning back into his chair.

"Did you just quote _Toy Story_ at me?" Chuck held up one trembling finger. "Because I do not appreciate that. I am _not_ a plastic cowboy."

Lucifer laughed at him, and propped his feet up on the little teapoy. The third teacup almost fell to the ground, but Chuck caught it with a tiny yelp, and set it back in its place.

Michael continued to look a little lost. "But..." He sighed. "That doesn't explain why Lucifer and myself are out of Hell."

"Oh—" Chuck swallowed a mouthful of hot tea before continuing. "That has nothing to do with me. See, Metatron tricked Castiel into doing these three trials to close the gates of Heaven and made all the angels Fall." He paused. "I'm assuming that forced you out of the Cage and into your vessels as well."

Lucifer scoffed, with scorn in his voice and irritation in his eyes. "My vessel is _Sam_, not Nick."

"And mine is Dean Winchester."

Chuck waved his hand. "Yeah, yeah." He set his tea down. "But their bodies are kind of occupied with their souls, and that thing Sam pulled back during the Apocalypse doesn't count because he took back control of his body." He shrugged. "So—next best thing. A dead body that gave its permanent consent a long time ago, and uh... I don't really know for sure but I'm pretty sure you appeared out of thin air, Michael, so... Fabricated?" He picked at a scone absently, and flinched when thunder rattled every tea set in the room.

"I see..." Michael stared at his cup.

Lucifer grumbled something under his breath, and snatched his teacup from the flimsy table. In his broad hands, the porcelain cup looked miniscule. He stood and walked over to the only window not obscured by leaves and tendrils of green.

Michael and Chuck watched him watched the rain. After a few calm minutes, Chuck broke the silence—"You know, this is not what I expected our interaction to be like."

"What?" Michael spared Chuck a glance as he poured himself another cup of tea.

Chuck looked up from his scone. "Oh—Just..." He scratched the back of his neck, where Susan's nose pressed warm and wet on his skin. "Sitting around drinking tea, talking calmly about things?" He huffed a breath of laughter. "I expected more violence and less pastry."

Michael nodded, clearly amused, and glanced down into his tea. The taste was growing on him. "I understand that's how most of your interactions with supernatural entities tend to go." He downed his tea like a shot. Breathed in deep at the heat.

Chuck let out one of his nerve-wracked chuckles. "Yeah, generally. Angels, demons, they all seemed to be the same way. Burn your eyes out first, ask questions later." He winced somewhat, and dropped his scone. He scrunched his face up. "Sorry. Headache." Grinding the heel of his palm against one eye, he grimaced apologetically at Michael.

Michael frowned.

Chuck gritted his teeth. "_Ohhh_ God, okay—" He slid out of his chair, to his knees, and hunched over with his head between his hands. "That _hurts_." Susan mewled from his hood, and slipped out of his sweatshirt to the floor. She nudged his ear with her nose.

Michael dropped to the floor beside him. He was reluctant to actually touch Chuck, for fear he'd hurt him more, so he sort of hovered with his hands in the air. "Brother!" He called to Lucifer. "What do I do to fix this?" He sat sort of panicky and still. Like a rabbit confronted by a wolf.

"I don't know, kick him or something." Lucifer dumped his tea into a flower pot and strode over. "Maybe he's like a television and if you hit him hard enough he'll start working again."

Michael shot his brother the most baffled look he could manage. "What are you talking about?!" He finally settled his hands on Chuck—who at that point was whimpering slightly—and dragged him closer, so he half lay across his lap. "I can't hit him! He's having some kind of epiphany—um... vision."

Lucifer nudged Chuck's leg with the toe of his boot. "Maybe he's having a seizure. I hear the hairless apes are prone to those."

Chuck sucked in a breath—shocking both fallen angels—and blew it out heavily, and used Michael as a handhold to pull himself into a more upright position. He blinked hard a few times, rubbing his temple. "Hand me my bag." His voice came out very quiet and ragged. "Please."

Lucifer raised an eyebrow, but shunted the messenger bag over with his foot. He watched Chuck—leaning against Michael, still, without seeming to realize it—dig through and pull out a rather scarred laptop. The twitchy man powered it up and fidgeted impatiently while it started. His shoe tapped on the floor. The second the machine seemed to be in working order Chuck began typing furiously.

As he wrote, Michael and Susan watched him with matching wide-eyed expressions. If anything, Michael was the more confused of the two, which made Lucifer laugh to himself.

Lucifer tried to interrupt once, but Chuck snapped at him to be quiet, and any time Lucifer made so much as a sound he made a strange clucking sound. Like one would to a disobedient dog. Lucifer sneered at him and sat down in his chair with a petulant huff. "Scolding the Prince of Darkness," he muttered under his breath. "Feh. _Humans_."

Chuck snapped his laptop shut, causing Michael and Lucifer to flinch. Lucifer eyed him, suspicious. Michael helped him to his feet. Susan leapt up, hooking her claws in his jeans, and climbed up his side until she could perch on his shoulder. Chuck looked at Lucifer.

"Your right-hand man is targeting the Winchesters." He jammed his laptop back into his bag and hoisted the strap around his neck. "We need a hotel room with a reliable internet connection _now_." He turned and nearly ran from the shop, bell jingling behind him.

Lucifer chased him down, to make him at least wait while Michael paid their bill with a wad of cash he found in his pocket. The sky had darkened considerably while they spent time in the teahouse, and rain fell like it was made of lead. Michael joined his brother and the Prophet on the sidewalk, squinting at the clouds. They hailed a cab to the nearest hotel, paid for that with more of Michael's mysterious cash, and booked a room on Chuck's miraculously still-active expense account. (He hadn't the slightest clue how he'd wheedled the publishers into giving him one in the first place, but he thanked his lucky stars it was still functional.)

Once in the hotel room, Chuck sat down with his computer and a pair of headphones and began to type again, slowly this time, fingers moving to peck at the keys. Sometimes he would pause, and click on something. And then he'd type some more. Lucifer and Michael milled around, feeling useless. Sometimes Michael would sit on the other bed and stare unblinking at Chuck until Chuck shot him a strange, disturbed expression. Then he would do something else, and eventually return to staring. Lucifer spent the entire time flipping through channels on the flat screen as fast as he could. He just held the button down and watched as flashes of color flickered in and out.

After three hours, Chuck pulled the headphones off of his ears. He clicked something. Leaned back against the pillows on the hotel bed with a sigh. "I'm done." He rubbed his face.

"What... What exactly _was_ that?" Michael gazed at the computer as though it would come to life and bite him.

Chuck gave him a tight smile. "The Winchester Gospel." Then he glared at Lucifer and barked, "Knock it off! Are you trying to give me a worse headache!?"

"Depends. Will a worse headache kill you?" Lucifer glared at him sorely, feeling a little bit mistreated. "Because that's my goal."

Chuck blinked at him. He sighed again, and waved his hand. "Whatever."

Lucifer grinned.


	11. I WILL CALL OUT YOUR NAME

Dean and Castiel sat side by side on the hood of the Impala.

Not much of the sky could be seen, thanks to the proliferation of street lamps and tallish buildings with bright lights and smoke from cigarettes and forest fires. The air smelled like wet asphalt and burning wood. Dean tapped his beer bottle against his knee, and watched cars on the freeway blur past.

"Dean."

Dean turned his eyes to Castiel. "Yeah, Cas?" He swilled his beer. Listened to an owl hoot.

"I'm sorry. I should have listened to you." Castiel looked down at his hands, palms upturned. "It seems like every time I try to do something you disapprove of, I break something." He smiled, and it was bitter.

Dean sighed. "Just bad luck, man." He nudged at Castiel with his shoulder, a grin spreading across his face. "We've all done stupid things, and I was kind of a jerk to you before... all of this. So... Let's call it good." He stuck his hand out, with his palm facing the sky.

Castiel reached out, and wrapped his fingers around Dean's. "Alright." He focused on Dean's green eyes. "It's good. All of it."

"Everything between us—water under the bridge. Dust in the wind." Dean winked.

Castiel almost laughed. "Dust in the wind."


	12. PINKSLIP INVITING ME INSIDE

"Dean!" Sam dragged his brother to his chair and shoved him down in front of the laptop. He scrolled down 'til he found the spot he wanted, and pointed. "That C.S Lewis guy updated a ton of chapters last night."

Dean scanned the words, and his eyes widened. "What the hell? Gabriel's really hard-up, huh?" He grimaced. Sam swatted his hand away.

"Jesus, Dean, that's not important!" He scrolled further. "We've got more pressing issues right now—read this."

Dean cleared his throat, as Castiel walked out of the bathroom. "Abaddon cracked her knuckles, blood red nail polish glinting in the yellow lighting of the library..." He trailed off as he read. After a few long seconds, he swore. Behind him, Castiel read as well.

"So. We've got an issue." Sam ran a hand through his hair.

"An _issue_? This is Trouble with a capital T roaring toward us in a steamroller. In less than forty-eight hours!" Dean pushed the computer away, and leaned back in the chair with a groan. "I thought you torched her ass?"

Sam laughed. "Yeah, Dean, I did. But when has a little fire ever stopped a high-ranking demon?"

Dean covered his eyes.

Castiel frowned, and looked out the window at the storm.

...

Gabriel left a vampire he didn't bother learning the name of in a stall in the ladies' bathroom in a bar in Walla Walla, Washington. (Apparently the strange tattoos added to his appeal, as did cutting back on layers and wearing only a well-fitting pair of jeans and an almost tight t-shirt.) He whistled to himself as he slipped through the crowd, and into the night air. The cold rain raised goosebumps on his arms and he shivered pleasantly.

In his pocket, a piece of paper rustled, with Nizana's phone number. In case he needed tips on passing as a human—as if he ever would. He took it mostly out of a sense of duty, considering she let him sleep in her bed and wear her clothes for a day. But he honestly couldn't care about her any less. She was a woman he met, and went away from right away. Sure she was nice, sure she was helpful, sure she was smart. But Gabriel was a dick, straight and simple. Always had been, always would be. He passed a trash can, and took the chance to grab the crumpled slip from his pocket and toss it in the garbage. It fluttered down forlornly, and he almost felt bad.

But not quite.

He didn't have a phone, anyway.

A streetlamp flickered as he passed under it, with a buzz and a click. Then it went out. He looked up at it. Stared at it, even. Willed it to come back to life. Just to see if he could.

The light bulb and its casing both exploded, sending a shower of hot glass and plastic down on Gabriel, who winced. He shook the debris off. "_Fuck_." He felt a little dizzy, too. He licked his thumb and rubbed spit and sparks over a small burn on his ear and another on his forehead. Anything else was too inconsequential for him to bother healing.

In the darkness, less than twenty feet away behind a thin wire fence, a deer stared at him with huge eyes and upright ears. He waved at her, and she bounded away into the night almost immediately. Like something was hot on her tail.

He continued walking down the road until the buildings fell away and it was edged with scrub grass and gravel. Then, he stuck his thumb out, and acted casual. A few drivers looked at him, but none stopped. He probably looked the dangerous type, with his crimson tattoos and sharp grin, walking along the highway at night. But eventually a bulky black truck with shiny chrome and massive tires slowed, and rolled to a stop. The skinny (but well-muscled) bald man in the driver's seat rolled down his window and leaned out.

Shouted, "Hey, where ya headed?" and gestured to the empty passenger seat.

Gabriel made his leisurely way around the front of the humming beast and hoisted himself up through the door, sliding into the leather seat. "Nearest big city." He paused for a moment, as if thinking. "Or, you know... wherever you wanna go." He leered.

The man chuckled. "That'd be Spokane." He glanced at Gabriel as he started the engine. "But maybe we'll make a pit stop on the way, hm?" Something in his eyes glinted.

"Maybe," Gabriel raised his eyebrows. "If you're lucky." He winked.

That was how, about an hour later, he found himself laid out on his elbows and knees in one of the seediest motel rooms he'd ever set foot in, muffling a mostly-fake moan into a pillow that smelled like beer and fabric softener.

The bald man kept up a pretty steady stream of colorful language and frankly insulting phrases. Gabriel ignored every word from his mouth and focused on himself, since he was pretty sure that's what the other man was doing. It certainly didn't seem like he was particularly set on pleasing Gabriel, at least. But Gabriel really didn't give a rat's ass. He needed a ride, the man was game, so what if he had to throw in some sex? That was easy.

The bald man finished first, and left Gabriel rather limp and unfulfilled on the bed while he pulled his pants up, leaving Gabriel to his own devices. So Gabe rolled his eyes and jacked himself off and got dressed quick as he could, and they were back in the truck in no time at all. The road stretched forward bleak and dusty, and behind them it trailed off into blackness and lightning.

The ride proved monotonous, and dull. The radio came in as mostly static, except for some station in Spanish, so that played quietly. Gabriel admired the host's ability to speak both enthusiastically and extremely fast. He wished he had that much energy in that moment, but the lack of scenery or anything to do sort of sapped it out of him. He'd teleport, if he knew for certain that he wouldn't collapse when he reached his destination. And if he knew that he'd even be able to reach the right place. But that wasn't feasible. He needed practice. Small distances, and the like.

His mask—shrunken for ease of transportation—burned in his pocket and kept him from dozing.

...

"Oh, gross." Chuck pressed fingers against his closed eyes. "I did not need that mental image." He slouched on the bed, with his laptop glowing in front of his crossed legs.

On the other bed, Lucifer pretended to snore and Michael lifted his head in the shadows to ask, "Is something the matter?" He rolled onto his side, settling his pale eyes on Chuck's small form. Chuck half-laughed to himself and met Michael's (honestly disconcerting) gaze.

"Your brother uh..." He rubbed his face. "In my vision, Gabriel kind of had sex with some random dude so he could get a ride to the nearest city." He sighed. "And let me tell you, that dude was not attractive."

Michael frowned. "You had another vision?" Leave it to the prettiest Archangel to zero in on the one completely normal (for Chuck) part of the conversation.

Chuck shrugged. "Oh, yeah. Just a little one. They're like... It's kind of like daydreaming, you know?" He shut his laptop and set it on the floor as he continued to speak. "Most of the time, it's a long slew of little visions, mostly inconsequential, in the back of my thoughts. I'm used to it. I imagine that's how prayers were for you." He paused, to think, and ran his hand along Susan's head.

Michael nodded thoughtfully. "I see."

"Anyway, sometimes I get bigger ones like the other day in the teashop, but they're mostly little. A train of thought." He tugged his t-shirt off, snatching a stained wifebeater from his bag. "Gives me a pretty constant headache, though." He noticed Michael still watching, while he pulled the tank top on over his head, and cleared his throat. "Um... could you not stare at me while I'm changing?"

Michael closed his eyes. "My apologies." The corners of his mouth twitched up, a little. "I forget that humans are so shy about their bodies."

"I'm not shy!" Chuck protested, voice squeaky. "I'm just... modest!"

Michael did smile, then. "Right. I see."

Chuck gave him a half-hearted glare, which he did not see.

...

Abaddon cracked her knuckles, blood red nail polish glinting in the yellow lighting of the library. In her black leather and gray denim, scarlet lipstick and shadowy eyes, she was queen. A paper cup of dark coffee sat cold and untouched on the windowsill in front of her despite the no food rules. (Who would defy _her_, after all?) She sat on a stool, with her elbows on the sill and her ankles crossed.

The Winchesters and their lame angel were in the Doubletree across some bridge—either the one in her sight, or another one nearby. (Somewhere not entirely shitty for once, it seemed. Impressive.)

She watched the Sunday traffic filter past below, through the rather dry early morning thunderstorm.

A small dog clung to its owners steps. She imagined the thing was afraid of the lightning. Lovely. She had no idea who to thank for the suitably diabolical atmosphere but she wanted to give them a token of her appreciation—maybe a severed head, or a kiss. She thought on it for a few seconds. Definitely the former.

She left the library and, as the door closed behind her with a clatter, ignited a stack of books in the reference section. She couldn't hear the shouts from down on the sidewalk, but she could certainly imagine them.

She was ready to party.


	13. WE'RE UP ALL NIGHT

(surprise update?)

"I'm beginning to think the phrase 'you can run but you can't hide' has a grain of truth to it." Castiel glanced out the window, through the rain. "Abaddon seems to possess an uncanny ability to track you two down." He drew the curtains, and took a canister of salt from the floor, and began to set a line parallel to the wall. Dean laughed.

Sam shot over his shoulder, "Yeah, it's like she's got a bloodhound with a nose for Winchesters." He shook his head. "Maybe we can try to negotiate with her or something." He tossed an empty bag of road salt to the bed.

"Yeah, or maybe if we send her ass back to Hell enough times she'll give up."

"Or she'll just get more pissed."

Dean nodded. "Yeah, probably."

"We could always..." Castiel paused, looking for the right words. He cleared his throat. "Arrange for her to take custody of Crowley." He stared down at the can in his hands.

Dean, in turn, stared at Cas. So did Sam. They were speechless, for the moment. Until Dean burst out laughing and Sam said, "Are you nuts?!" He elbowed Dean in the ribs, with a mildly alarmed expression. "Something like that could go wrong in like... a dozen different ways! How would we even get Crowley to her, for one thing? Pack him in a box and mail him to her evil secret lair?" He shook his head, disbelieving and distressed.

"You're correct, as you often are, Sam." Castiel sat primly on the edge of Dean's bed. "It was merely a suggestion. I didn't think it feasible, in any case."

Sam sighed. "If you can find a surefire way to make it work, I'd be less inclined to shoot it down." He shrugged, chewing on a thumbnail, and his mouth twisted. "I just—someone could get hurt."

"I know, Sam."


	14. YOU'VE GOT THE MARK OF THE BEAST

Gabriel laughed darkly under his breath. A woman with a sour face stood on a street corner holding a sign that said, in all capital letters, "THE END IS NIGH!" She occasionally flipped it to show the other side—"EVERYONE SINS! REPENT!" He leered sidelong at her as he walked past, and she shifted uncomfortably. She might have seen something dangerous in his posture. Perhaps she merely didn't like the way he seemed to be undressing her with his eyes as he did everyone he passed.

He turned his attentions to the early morning sun peeking through black clouds. He liked how much more sinister the weather grew, further inland—the sky seemed vaulted higher, with darker clouds and more billowing winds. Maybe due to the wide horizon and flat landscape.

He smelled blood and electricity in the air.

Partially from himself. But most of it was from something else.

A silver truck—and there were _so many _pickup trucks in Spokane—roared past, purposely swerving to send a wave of putrid water up onto the sidewalk and also Gabriel's entire front half. Some guy laughed out the open passenger window and Gabriel flipped him off. He dried himself with a snap from both fingers. (A teenaged stoner flinched away.) Looked back up at the sky beseechingly. "Forgive me, Father, for I am about to cause a multi-car pileup."

So saying, he turned in the direction the truck had gone and adopted a stance he'd seen in countless kung-fu movies. He punched the sidewalk as hard as he could with a burst of red lightning and shards of concrete.

He had _Avatar: the Last Airbender _to thank for that particular stroke of brilliance.

Almost immediately, the road in front of the offending truck buckled. The pickup skidded to an abrupt stop, listing sideways against the crooked, cracked asphalt. Three vehicles of varying size slammed into it in quick succession.

Gabriel turned the corner, light-headed and slightly nauseous, followed by the stares of those few who paid enough attention to their surroundings to have seen his little stunt, and hummed as he walked. The song he hummed was "Feeling Good."

Under an awning, he paused, and leaned on the wall. He glanced down at his battered hand—made a fist and winced with satisfaction at the sting of split skin as it pulled tight over his damaged knuckles. He raised his hand to his mouth and sucked at his bloodied knuckles. The thin bones in his fingers crackled as he focused on their realignment and healing, and it hurt, but he relished the feeling. Made everything seem a little more alive and a little more vibrant and a little more _real_.

...

"Okay, what have you got?" Chuck crossed his arms.

Michael held up a sleekly packaged iPhone and said, "The man with the nametag told me I needed one of these." He frowned. "I don't know what makes it better than the kind of phone Adam carried, but he insisted."

Chuck grimaced. He rubbed his temple, but the look of absolute _want_ on Michael's face was pretty much undeniable. He barely knew what he held in his hands but he desired it no less. Chuck chewed on his lip before shrugging and grabbing the phone from Michael with a nod. Michael smiled at him and Chuck rolled his eyes.

"Well I haven't got a goddamn thing. What's the point?" Lucifer scoffed. "I've got missing wings and a broken halo and now I need a phone? I'm as good as _human_, and no matter what Gabriel seems to think about your race of infantile mud monkeys, that makes me less than worthless." He glared off at some display showcasing smart phones, petulant like a child and full of bile, with his arms crossed tightly across his chest. A small toddler saw his look and ran to hide behind her mother's skirt.

With a deep sigh, Chuck closed his eyes. "Wow." He opened them again. "_Someone_ took some age-reducing pills today, didn't they?"

"What are you talking about, you impotent hack?"

Chuck ignored the jab. "I'm talking about the fact that you are acting like a _child_!" He spread both arms wide, almost forgetting the extremely expensive piece of technology clasped in one hand. "You're the prince of Hell, and you're throwing a temper tantrum because you don't want to get a phone? Jesus Christ! " He pointed at a display of flip phones. "Like it or not, I'm feeding you two, and giving you a place to live, and paying for all of your expenses. So, as much of a bad mood as you might be in, I need to be able to keep track of you at all times because if you get... I dunno... arrested or something, it'll be my fault!"

Lucifer opened his mouth to speak and Chuck cut him off with a pincer-like motion of his hand. "Ah-ah-ah!" He raised his eyebrows, eyes a little wide. "There's a 90% chance that if you got arrested, _I _would somehow end up in trouble for it. Go get a goddamn phone." He stared Lucifer down, and Lucifer didn't budge.

"_Now_."

Finally, Lucifer rolled his eyes, walked to the display, and picked a phone at random. He sneered down at Chuck as he shoved the pack into his hands. "Happy?"

"Yes." Chuck shot him a look that said otherwise. "Now go wait outside." He didn't bother to see if Michael and Lucifer did as they were told before he headed straight to a service desk and set both phones down. Almost every person in the store was staring at him, and a few even whispered. No doubt they were baffled by a decidedly adult man receiving a scolding from what appeared to be a rather puny drug-addict. He went through the spiel with the phone salesperson, gave his payment information for the _two_ new plans—would it kill the angels to get phones with compatible plans?!—and made his timid way out into the main area of the mall.

His charges stood beside a fake potted plant, and Lucifer glared daggers at any person who dared make eye contact.

Chuck really wanted to know what had put him in such a bad mood. Usually he at least pretended to be friendly, even if his inner thoughts consisted entirely of roasting passersby on spits and eating them for brunch.

Instead of asking about it, though, Chuck snapped his fingers and set off in the general direction of the Target. "We need to get you two some clothes that aren't covered in dirt."

"Oh, great." Lucifer shoved his hands in his pockets. "Just what I always wanted—poorly manufactured wads of fabric to cover my body with. What's next? Makeup?"

Chuck raised his eyes heavenward. "Can you just... shut up? For like an hour or two?"

Lucifer scowled at him.

Michael made a face like a kicked puppy, glancing between his brother and his benefactor. He fretted with the hem of his shirt, and finally spoke up only to offer to carry the bag with their phones. Chuck handed it to him, and Michael clutched it in both hands while they made their way through the mall.

Chuck could tell he had a long day ahead of him. Possibly with tears involved, on his part.

...

"Oh dear."

Abaddon stood outside of the Winchester's hotel room with a finger to her lips. She felt the protections emanating from inside—salt lines and most definitely some sigils that would make her sore in the morning. She shook her head.

"I'll have to give them an A for effort."

She smiled, teeth showing feral and white.

The carpet burst into flames.


	15. WAKING UP TO ASH AND DUST

[[Bit of a short one, with a little burst of action.  
I got two things to tell you guys- no bad news or anything don't worry  
1) In case you cannot tell I'm terrible at action.  
2) and more importantly, while the story is actually slowing, it will pick up pace again in about ten chapters (I know that seems like a lot but it's like 10k it's not too bad) and then BAM it will end with a bang and also possibly a lot of anger on your guys' part, around chapter uh... God I dunno, chapter twenty-eight or thirty? Just. Yeah.  
Really this is the kind of story best read uh... all at once rather than chapter by chapter oops but oh well.]]

... ... ... ... ... ...

"Oh God," Sam snatched his computer up and shoved it into his bag. "Dean, the door's on fire." Dean made a questioning noise from the shower, as Sam continued to pack their things together. Castiel stared at the flames. Sam turned and shouted, "Dean! _Fire_!"

The shower immediately shut off and there was a brief scuffle before Dean burst out of the bathroom with his shirt half-on. "What the hell?!" He tugged it down the rest of the way, then snatched his boots and pulled those on as well.

Through the flaming door, a woman's voice said, "Don't run, boys!"

"Oh, Jesus tap-dancing Christ," Dean shrugged into his jacket and grabbed the nightstand between the two beds, hefting it in both arms before slamming it into the window. Thankfully they were on the first floor, so when the window shattered into countless slivers of glass he immediately threw his stuff out and jumped to the grass below. Sam and Castiel came hot on his heels, right as the fire alarm began to scream.

They ran out across the lawn and made it to the parking lot—sleek midnight Chevy just in view in the stormy light—a split second before Abaddon materialized in front of them.

"Hello, boys."

She was wearing what looked like a greaser outfit from a 1980's movie. Black leather jacket, acid-washed gray jeans that fit the shape of her legs seamlessly, blood red converse, and a tight white t-shirt through which you could see the vague shape and redness of her bra.

Her lips and nails were crimson like a poison apple.

"Going somewhere?"

"You bet your ass, we're goin' somewhere." Dean dropped his bag, sliding his gun from his waist-band. He leveled it at her and she laughed.

"You think a little peashooter like that is going to scare me?" Abaddon gave the ivory-handled gun a condescending glance. Behind her, a bolt of lightning crackled across the sky.

Thunder boomed, and the slowly-growing crowd forming from the evacuating building seemed to gasp as one entity and huddle closer before returning their eyes to the showdown before them.

Dean glanced around at the frightened civilians, and waved his gun, and shouted, "Go somewhere safe! Now!"

Abaddon waved her hand, nails flashing, and a wall of white-hot flames spring to life around their area of the parking lot. "Let them watch. I haven't had an audience in a while." The Impala was beyond the ring of fire.

Dean scowled at her. "You know what?" He looked over his shoulder, at Castiel. Met his eyes. He turned his attention back to the Queen of Hell. "Let's make a deal."

Abaddon raised one eyebrow, sleek and smooth. "I'm no crossroads scab, but I'm listening."

"We'll give you Crowley. Do whatever you want with him. Just leave us alone and go back to Hell."

Humming, Abaddon tilted her head. It reminded the Winchester Brothers eerily of the angels. She looked them all up and down, and her eyes lingered on Sam. She met his eyes. Frowned. She stared at him harder. And then she laughed. "You didn't finish Crowley's little cleanse, did you? Pity." She planted her hands on her hips and looked back to Dean. "It's a deal."

"Four am tomorrow, outside of the Men of Letters HQ in Lebanon, Kansas." Dean cleared his throat. "I'm sure you can figure out where that is."

Abaddon smiled. "Delightful." And she disappeared.

The fire continued to burn.

Dean swore. "Does anybody have any salt, or sand, or dirt? Something?"

Sam pulled a packet of table salt from his pocket with a subdued cough.

"Lord help us all." Dean elbowed his little brother. "Anyone _else_?"

No one moved.


	16. OH, POOR ATLAS

"You want me to _what_?" Kevin stared at the brothers' image on his computer screen. "I mean, I'd love to get rid of him but just because he's weakened doesn't mean he can't still kick my ass, Dean!" He shoved his face in his hands, with a soft laugh.

Dean rolled his eyes. "Keep him shackled up and you'll be dealing with a puppy. Just shove him outside and cuff him to a tree or something."

"You know what?" Kevin held up one hand, eyes shut. "Fine. I'll do it. Gladly, even! But if she somehow gets in here and kills me, it's your fault." He gave them a tight smile and shut his laptop before they could say anything obnoxious, and stood up.

"Crowley, we're going on a walk!" Kevin wound his way down to the dungeon. "And you're going to wear a leash because I don't want to get _eaten_ by your competition." He flung the doors open, and they creaked loudly into the darkness. From the shadows, Crowley watched him, heavy-lidded and weighed down with iron.

Kevin grabbed an iron chain—engraved with various sigils and symbols on every link—as he approached the ex-King of Hell. He fastened it to the ever-present iron collar, and tugged until Crowley followed after him, a much smaller man than before. The warded restraints really _did_ do wonders to weaken him. Crowley actually followed Kevin with minimal resistance.

"You know, I was gonna resist the urge to say this but..." Kevin chuckled to himself. "Ever since Sam did the third trial, you've just been... Well. Pathetic." He smiled brightly over his shoulder.

"Oh, shut up."

Kevin shook his head, and dragged Crowley up the steps. The only entrance to the Batcave groaned as it swung open, and he shoved Crowley out into the slight drizzle and frosty air of the morning, before following close behind. He then proceeded to padlock the metal chain to a steel ring in the cracked asphalt just beside the headquarters.

"Hey, now. What's the big idea?" Crowley rattled the shackles on his hands and frowned down at the ground. "I'm not a _dog_."

Kevin grinned, tight and a little mocking. "Abaddon might disagree. Bye-bye." He waved, and disappeared back underground, bolting the door as securely as he could behind him. If he poured an extra line of salt down, well... No one was there to see.

Outside, Crowley rattled his chains again. Little good it did him.

"Oh, _bollocks_."

...

Chuck buried his face in Susan's side, humming some love song he'd heard on the radio at Target, as he stood at the foot of his hotel bed. She purred against him, and emanated a comforting warmth and softness. She blinked her mismatched eyes at him and licked his hand.

"Oh, Susan, what would I do without you?" He took a deep breath.

"I like to imagine you'd break down in the middle of a store and have to be escorted out." Lucifer tilted his head to one side and laid a finger along his cheek, thoughtfully. "Oh, wait. You did." He crossed his arms and leaned against the doorway.

Chuck glowered at Lucifer, and set Susan on the bed. She meowed at him. "Listen, Lu." He took a few steps closer to Lucifer, but didn't get within arm's reach. "You have been... beyond frustrating today." His eyebrows shot up. "I don't even know what to do with you anymore—you made the cashier cry!"

"It's his fault for having a girl's name." Lucifer rolled his eyes and sidled forward. "Also... Did you just call me 'Lu?'"

Chuck snorted. "Yeah. Would you rather be called 'Lucy'? Because I can do that."

"I'm insulted."

"You—" Chuck threw his arms up. "_You're_ insulted? I just had to drag around two grown-ass men to buy them clothes and phones and—and food and whatever the hell else and I had to apologize to a crying man on your behalf and I had a panic attack in the middle of a _Target_—for God's sake, Lucifer! Do you even understand that the world doesn't revolve around you?!"

Lucifer pretended to think for about half a second before shaking his head. "Nope." He let out a self-satisfied breath. "I really couldn't care less about all those humans."

"Yeah, well—" Chuck waved his hands around ineffectively with a stubborn expression on his face, and finally, after steeling himself, he reached across and gave Lucifer a firm slap on the wrist. "If you're gonna act like a child, you're gonna get treated like a child!" He clenched his fists at his sides.

Lucifer frowned, and rubbed his wrist, looking down at it with squinted eyes and a strangely dark expression. "Ow." He raised his gaze to Chuck's—and Chuck felt a chill go up his spine—before moving to turn and walk away.

At the last second, however, he whirled on his heel and caught Chuck across the face with the back of his broad hand, putting so much force behind his blow that Chuck stumbled backwards and fell into one of the rickety chairs at the little table near the beds. One of the chair's legs snapped beneath his sudden weight, sending him to the floor. His back hit the carpet with a heavy thunk. The broken chair toppled down beside him.

Lucifer flexed his hand, looking down at it, and turned to leave the hotel room.

The door slammed behind him.

Chuck stared at the ceiling for a long time, stunned. He heaved in a sharp breath before rolling onto his side and hiding his face under his arm. His cheek stung, and his eyes burned, and he felt pathetic and tiny. His back hurt, too—where he'd hit the chair and then the floor—and he had a scrape along his right forearm from the rough carpeting.

Michael sank to his knees beside Chuck. "Prophet—I..." He frowned. "Chuck." He slid his hands under Chuck's arm and waist and tugged him to sit upright, and pulled him into his arms. "I apologize for my brother's behavior."

Chuck pressed his face into Michael's neck, and clenched a handful of his (new) gray shirt, and choked out a trembling laugh—or perhaps a sob. Probably both, from what Michael knew of the man. Chuck shuddered, and his tears were wet against Michael's skin.

Susan jumped down from the bed and settled herself in the crook of Chuck's legs, while Michael rocked him gently back and forth and mumbled meaningless phrases in Enochian with his hand carding through Chuck's hair, soothing and repetitive.

Chuck felt like a little kid. More than he ever had in his life.

...

Gabriel passed a woman with red lips who smelled like fire, in his wanderings across the city that was "near nature, near perfect," and reeked of car exhaust. Their eyes met briefly. She winked at him, with a knowing expression on her face. He watched her cross the street.

"What the hell?" He shook off the feeling he had of being watched. Ignored it to focus on a more annoying sensation—that of the prayers in his head from countless faithful men and women. They whispered things in his ear in a constant stream of words, like he wore a little earpiece.

They whispered things like, "Oh, Archangel Gabriel, please help me pass this exam," and "Gabriel, angel of justice, please deliver my father's killer into the hands of the law," and "Loki, God of mischief and deception, please keep my wife from finding out about my mistress," and, "Lopt, help my son get into college." People prayed some boring things in his name, sometimes.

One in particular stuck out to him though. A strong tug in the back of his mind—a summoning spell for Loki. Not done correctly enough to force him to the location, but enough to urge him toward it. He could almost smell the blood on the air, and licked his lips. Perhaps it was time to pay a visit to Riverside State Park.

He slipped his miniaturized mask from his pocket, and pulled on the edges until it expanded. When he pushed it onto his face, the mirrored insides seemed to mold to the contours of his face. Like a second skin made of silver and stone, the mask clung to him.

The people he passed looked at him strangely.

He laughed.


	17. I STILL WAS A BLIND MAN

Early update because I've written all but the final three chapters, and this chapter is hella short. May update more often now. Will end at 30 chapters. Chapters will begin to be more consistent in length.

...

Dean sighed dramatically from his seat in the library. (The patrons of the Doubletree had been freed from their ring of flames once the fire department showed up.) He leaned back in his chair so the front legs left the floor and tapped the table in front of them. "Uuugh."

Sam shot him a glare. "Dude, if you're _that_ bored just leave, okay?" He rubbed his eyes. "Take Cas to a bar or something. Just... please go." He shoved a book aside, and opened another one in its place.

"Yes!" Dean jumped to his feet, practically skipping around the table. He clasped Sam's shoulder. "Sammy, I love you. Don't ever change." He grabbed Castiel and they left Sam researching a local cult.

Outside of the library, Castiel frowned. "Dean, should we have left him alone?"

"Eh, he'll be fine." Dean waved his hand, and jogged across the street. "The little nerd loves all that research crap. He'll probably have disbanded the cult by the time we get back to the hotel tonight."

Castiel nodded. "I feel bad, nonetheless."

Dean clapped him on the back. "Relax, man!" He slung his arm around Castiel's shoulders and jerked him closer, raising an eyebrow with a slight leer. "We can go check out a strip club or something."

"Um..." Castiel narrowed his eyes at Dean. "Alright."

"Now you're talkin'!"

"I don't believe that my response warrants that particular turn of phrase but... 'whatever floats your boat,' as they say." Castiel's fingers twitched with the urge to make air quotes.

Dean laughed and pulled him down the sidewalk.


	18. ONE MANIAC AT A TIME

Now will update daily, until the final chapter (30) is uploaded.

...

Lucifer slid his arms loose across Chuck's shoulders, lining up coolly along his back. "Brother dearest _insists_ that I... apologize... for stressing you out, and... you know... injuring you." Lucifer's breath was cold against Chuck's ear, and his weight hung heavy around his neck, pinning him in place. "So... do you want me to, I don't know... make it up to you...? Make it worth your while, as you humans like to say?" Chuck swore he could feel the slow thrum of Lucifer's heartbeat against his spine.

"Are you—Are you propositioning me?" Chuck cleared his throat. "Because... _no?_"

"...What's so 'no' about me?"

"You hit me so hard I fell down, a—and left a cut on my cheek from your—Nick's—wedding ring, you raging dickhole!" Chuck squirmed. "I'm not gonna have sex with you because Michael told you to apologize! Or... or for any other reason, for that matter!"

Lucifer's eyes locked onto the side of Chuck's face, blue and sharp. "What did you just call me?" He didn't budge. Ignored most of Chuck's ravings to focus on the sole insult.

"Um—" Chuck frowned. "...Nothing." He really didn't want to be slapped in the face again.

"That's what I thought." Suddenly, Lucifer's chill disappeared, as he dislodged himself from Chuck, and Chuck pulled in a somewhat shaky breath, feeling the warm breeze of the night brush against the skin of his neck, from the open window. He rubbed his face.

"Jesus."

Susan twined around his ankles, and he scooped her into his arms.

...

The rain came down in swathes of whispering white noise—drilling holes into the dirt until it became mud, bruising the petals of dusky pink poppies, flooding dips in the ground to form dirty puddles, rushing through the leaves of the trees with a sound like the hushed laughter of many children. The clouds roiled dark and purple, tinged with black and gray and blue, and too-white lightning rustled between them in long tendrils. Illuminated the forest bright and stark and glittering.

The main thing Sam noticed was a lot of pain.

He figured he'd been careful. Thought, _No big deal. I can handle this on my own_. He'd wanted to let Dean have a day off with Cas.

He'd been wrong.

_So wrong_.

Should have forced Dean to help him. Cults always struck nasty and dirty and never fought fair, and Sam _knew_ that but still he'd decided to go off on his own without even calling his brother to tell him where he was headed.

Forty members, and about half of them had ambushed Sam while he trailed the others, and they had wrapped him around and around and around with harsh rope—and how many times did that make? How often did he get tied up? Too often. They lashed him to a cracked boulder in a barren clearing edged with poppies and thistles. Wrists bound separate, drawn to the side, each held tight to a pole shoved in the ground. Feet pulled together. Like a crucifixion, almost.

But not quite.

With their gnarled staves and burnt wands tipped with shards of crystals, swathed around in white hooded cloaks that dragged in the mud and bled brown with the murky water at their feet, they had pinned him there. Wearing masks of charred paper and leather and wood with twisted expressions and curled horns and crooked fangs.

Wicked knives with teeth and poorly carved runes.

They spoke something in Old English. Honest-to-the-gods _Old_ English. Not Shakespeare's Elizabethan English. _Old_ Old English. Like _Beowulf _Old English. Anglo-Saxon style.

Sam tugged at the ropes restraining his wrists. He only succeeded in sending a stinging pain through his skin where it rubbed. Fastened by someone who knew how knots worked, clearly.

God, he shouldn't have gone alone.

Especially considering his lingering weakness from the failed Trials less than two weeks earlier.

His hair flopped damply into his eyes, and he turned his head to the side to dislodge it.

He coughed.

The language shifted abruptly, and Sam strained to hear it. He focused, narrowed his thoughts past the pain in his limbs, the staccato drone of the rain, the hardness of the stone at his back. He closed his eyes to find the language they spoke. And... Yes, that was it. He recognized a few words of Old Norse. Most notably, "Lopt." His breath caught, and he opened his eyes. Why—no, _who_ would present a sacrifice to the god Loki, in 2013? Though, they probably didn't realize just how dangerous Loki—Gabriel—could be.

"You people are _crazy_! He's gonna flay you alive!"

His words got him nothing but a length of wet, dirty cloth stretched between his teeth and tied around his head. It tasted like gravel. His nostrils flared and his jaw clenched and he glared at the person looming over him, venom in his eyes. The person flinched, but drew away coolly. Their eyes glinted behind their skewed mask. Sam scowled. Lightning blinded him for a split second, while the group of people began to lay things on the ground in a pattern he couldn't see, and switched from a sort of idle Norse chatter into legitimate chanting—and where did these people get their info? Incorrectly and dangerously modified summoning rituals? Old Norse? What on earth? Sam's teeth tightened on his gag.

A very tall person, with the most terrifying mask—twisted and blackened and dripped all over with wax—lit a match beside Sam's head and the sulfur smell filled his nostrils. They dropped it to the ground. Sam snorted—but a ring of flames burst up around his damaged boulder, an inner circle surrounded by the cult members.

Their apparent leader leaned in close, settling cold fingers on Sam's arm and pushing his sleeve further up past his elbow. They smelled like scorched bacon and cheap incense. They whispered and Sam almost caught the words, but not quite, and a shorter figure handed them a curved knife from across the line of flames.

The blade dug into his skin and slid up from his palm to his inner elbow, too shallow to be dangerous, but deep enough to sting and bleed.

Sam hissed a breath in sharp through his nose.

The other arm.

Then, they pulled his shoes off and set V shapes in the bottoms of his feet and he held back a small shocked noise. Best not to give these people any satisfaction. He gritted his teeth as best he could and blinked hard. Deep breaths.

The rain stopped.

The flames flicked higher and thicker and greasier—reddish like an oil blaze. He felt the heat reaching out inches from his head. Prayed to... _someone_... that his hair didn't catch fire. Smoke roiled into the air, white and opaque, blocking out the worshippers. It drifted across him, and he drew in a dry lungful, and coughed violently, sending a pang of pain through his lungs.

He struggled against his bindings but the rope only scratched his skin. His eyes watered in the growing haze. His head began a sort of throbbing ache, and he tried not to take in the smoke but he couldn't breathe so shallowly for any extended time and he sucked in unwilling breaths through his nose that dried his throat and spun his brain in circles. Red threaded through his vision in splotches against the increasing white veil above him. His eyelids drooped. He tasted blood in the back of his throat.

The chanting ceased.

Several people—men, mostly—screamed.

And screamed and screamed and _screamed_.

The smell of overripe apples and peaches cut through the smoke.

The sun sent down beams of cutting yellow light through the clouds and illuminated the smoke to a soft gold glowing mist, as it began to dissipate. The smell grew stronger. The ring of flames puffed out all at once, and when Sam rolled his head to the side, he saw no hooded figures. Masks littered the damp ground, where he could see it. The air cleared but his head continued to pound. His limbs felt heavy. The rag between his mouth seemed to grow fouler tasting by the second. Sam squeezed his eyes shut for a long moment, and a too-hot smoke-induced tear trickled its way down the side of his nose. He clenched his fingers. Opened his eyes again to stare up at the clouds pulling themselves apart in the vibrant blue sky. Something rustled through wet grass.

A familiar voice spoke his name.

"Sam Winchester. Shoulda known."

The ropes holding him tight against the stone snapped and fell to the ground and Sam rolled off of the split boulder with a grunt, landing in the mud before he reached unsteady hands up to tug the gag from his mouth. He breathed heavy and loud, forehead pressed against the wet dirt and ash, shoulders and wrists aching. Footsteps sounded behind him, and he sat up in a rush that sent his head whirling. He rubbed his temple. Regained some steadiness, and looked over his shoulder.

A figure stood, in black jeans and a red t-shirt and a stone-gray mask with a grinning face and squinted slits for eyeholes. Sam recognized the Younger Futhark rune for K embossed the forehead in red. Its wide leer sent shivers down Sam's spine. He licked his cracked lips and tasted blood.

"Gabriel."

The man's visible skin crawled with tattoos of a deep red ink—the color of drying blood. A flock of birds or leaves or both flew up his throat. A cuff of thin, uneven lines adorned his upper right arm, with crossing snakes below, whose heads rested on his wrist. Flames lined themselves up his left arm. A sun symbol sat on the top of each foot. Sam wondered what might be on his back.

"You're really alive." Sam reached a shaking hand to the stone, and pulled himself to his feet. Swayed, but kept himself upright. His throat burned and his eyes hurt.

The shorter man tilted his head at just the perfect angle to send the barest of flashes of color from behind the eye slits of his mask. The color of young whiskey or amber. He stepped closer, approached Sam, until he stood right in his space, threatening—even though the top of his head only reached up to Sam's jaw. He slid his hands up Sam's bleeding arms, over his shoulders and up his neck. Rested his fingers there, thumbs pressed lightly against Sam's throat. He took one hand back and pushed his mask up just enough to free his mouth, thin-lipped and defined. Sam had never noticed before, but Gabriel's lips were kind of pretty, in a way.

Gabriel reached back up and tangled his fingers in Sam's hair to tug him down with a strength belied by his delicate wrists and small stature.

He kissed Sam rough and wet and dirty, and Sam's skin tingled all over with an electric feeling. The skin along his inner arms itched and the back of his throat stopped its tickling, and his head cleared, with Gabriel's mouth on his.

He tasted like honey, blood, and fruit.

Sam moved to cup the back of Gabriel's head in one hand, to pull him tight against his body. He found himself breathing harsh through his nose again but for an entirely different reason than before, with a god's tongue in his mouth.

He felt steadier.

Healthier.

A little out of control, brain filled with a haziness and lust.

Dried blood flaked from his arm where it rubbed against the other man's shoulder, and left no cut nor scar. Just smooth skin. Healed.

Sam shivered.

He pressed his free hand against Gabriel's hip. Dug his fingers into the lines of the inked feathers just under the denim of his jeans.

He pulled back from the kiss, heart racing. He looked at the stone mask in front of him, the slits now showing only the skin of Gabriel's forehead. He realized, with his mask pushed up, Gabriel was effectively blind. Sam continued to hold him in place. He didn't struggle, though. In any case, Sam never would have been able to keep him immobilized. Not for real. Not if the trickster god wanted away.

"What are you doing?" Sam licked his lips. "This whole pagan god thing... Why?"

Gabriel pulled the mask from his face and let it drop to the mud. His eyes burned in a way Sam had never seen. He smirked, familiar but meaner than before. He shifted in Sam's grip.

"Well, hello to you too, Sam. Still love me?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Gabriel grinned.

Sam stared.

Gabriel raised an eyebrow, with a brief glance downward. Hard mouth, hard eyes, hard jaw. He smiled but his eyes spat electricity. His smirk widened, unnatural. "Happy to see me?" He winked.

Sam rolled his eyes. "You _jumped_ me. With your tongue!" He licked his lips—the blood was gone, the split healed. "What did you expect? I'm only _human_."

"Well, well, well." Gabriel stepped away and, as Sam suspected, attempting to hold him proved pointless. He turned his back to Sam. "I know Dean's always eager to get off when he can, but you? Color me surprised." The kenaz rune sat at the base of his neck. The burgundy lines captivated Sam, and his eyes focused on that one visible tattoo.

Gabriel shot him a dark look over his shoulder.

"Enjoying the view?"

Sam glowered. "I heard screams before the smoke cleared." He crossed his arms. "What did you do?" He bit his thumbnail.

Gabriel's eyes narrowed, and his posture stiffened. He took a few steps away, and turned so he faced Sam once more. Caught Sam in his glare, and planted his hands on his hips, and tilted his head. He smiled dangerous and thin.

"Sam Winchester, I'm _surprised_ at you. Maybe I decided I'd rather punish the people committing crimes in my name than claim their sacrifice—lucky for _you_." He cocked an eyebrow. "And you know something? You _know_ me. You know the kind of person I am. I'm not _nice_." He turned away again. Dragged his toes through the mud. "When have I ever _been_ nice?"

Sam sighed.

"Fine. Fine, okay."

He shoved his hands into his pockets.

"But why'd you kiss me?"

Gabriel laughed and it echoed much more hollow and colder than the first time Sam had heard it. (How gleeful and warm it had been, during their first encounter, coming from a dorky janitor. Not like now.) He spread his arms open wide. The light caught at the red embedded in his skin and sent it shining and bright and hot. Gabriel turned his head, to catch Sam's eyes from over his shoulder.

He smiled. Or grimaced. Sam honestly had no clue. Maybe both. Gabriel crouched down and scraped his fingers through the wet dirt and mud and torn grass. He held his dirty hand up to study it. "Face it Sam, you're tantalizing." He shrugged. "And I'm no angel."

Sam opened his mouth.

Gabriel interrupted. "Not anymore." He slithered to the ground so he lay on his stomach with his chin propped on folded arms. Kicked one foot up into the air. He scraped his foot up the inside of his leg, dirtying it. Left a line of mud on his skin and jeans. "I'm Loki, Sam. Like I used to be." He rolled onto his back, spread-eagled. "I can't just snap away the ouchies, Sammy—Well, I can, but I don't feel like throwing up at the moment." He grinned, bared his teeth, feral and threatening. He closed his eyes against the sun. "Kissing the boo-boos away is much easier. I've always appreciated the more _intimate_ gestures, you know?" He waggled his eyebrows.

"Gabriel."

"Don't call me that."

"Loki."

Sam's tongue flicked out to wet his lips—they always seemed a little too dry on any given day, and especially so in that still-smoky clearing. He rubbed his palms on his jeans, and took half a step forward. He thought for a few seconds before opening his mouth again. "Are you more or less powerful?"

"Well." Loki drew one knee up, his foot planted firmly on the ground. "I was an Archangel, then I was an Archangel _and_ a trickster god, and now I'm a god. Lost a bit there." He tilted his head to the side. "I am, technically, less powerful than I was before I died." He waggled his eyebrows. "But I'm more powerful than when I was created."

Sam drew in a slow breath, dizzy. He approached Gabriel, and dropped to his knees beside him, and planted his hands on either side of his head. He lowered himself onto Gabriel until their chests touched and their legs intertwined, and he supported himself on his forearms, and kissed Gabriel.

Gabriel jabbed his arm. "I answered your questions, so answer mine."

"Alright." Sam let his lips linger. He pulled away briefly.

"The answer is..."

He leaned back down for another kiss. He couldn't help himself—couldn't control his urges. Like the ritual had left him needy and crude and unthinking.

Gabriel lay completely still, neither encouraging nor discouraging. Every cell in his body seemed to be immobile. He didn't even bother to pretend to breathe. Just opened his mouth and let Sam work their lips and tongues and teeth together.

Maybe not the most elegant of kisses.

Sam's fingers slipped through the mud to grasp at Gabriel's hair, dirtying it further. His free hand slid over the decorated skin on Gabriel's hip.

"'Yes.'"

Then Gabriel moved, with a growl deep in his throat. In a flash of movement his legs wrapped around Sam's waist and his arms lifted up to curl across his shoulders, and he squirmed to kiss back. He bit at Sam's mouth, and dragged his nails over the soft, worn fabric of his flannel shirt. His heels dug against Sam's lower back, perhaps to pull him closer. It worked. Sam grunted and rolled his hips the slightest bit—seeking friction but acutely aware of what he was doing—and gave a vicious tug to Gabriel's hair. Gabriel hissed into his mouth, fingers pressing hard into Sam's shoulder blades. He snarled. Sam shoved him back against the mud. Gabriel let him, with a small guttural sound. His back arched, and Sam felt the bridled power buzzing under Gabriel's façade, and moaned.

Gabriel's breath hitched.

He raised his muddy hands and pressed them palms-flat against the lines of Sam's jaw.

He locked his eyes on Sam's, and they blazed. Dangerous.

And then Sam pulled back from Gabriel to take a shallow breath.

He fixed his eyes on Gabriel—pupils wide—and the coppery-brown ring of color in the center of his irises glinted in the growing sunlight.

He stood.

"I have to go." Sam half-smiled. Awkwardly. Unsettled.

Gabriel scowled. He crossed his arms, and settled his gaze sharply on Sam, all fire and molten gold and glass. The tip of his tongue peeked out to wet his lips and his eyes narrowed. "Seriously?" He rolled his eyes.

"...Sorry." Sam shrugged.

Gabriel huffed. "So, you're gonna leave me in the middle of the forest with a raging boner?"

Sam snorted, and attempted to resettle his clothing to appear somewhat gathered. He ran a hand through his hair and it lay the way he wanted with barely a thought. He grinned down at Gabriel. "Like I said—sorry." He shrugged. "Maybe we can meet up later. Get lunch... or whatever." His face was red. His eyes, conflicted.

Gabriel stared at him. "Yeah, yeah." He turned his head to look off into the trees (thinly dispersed at first, but then thickening until they made a sea of off-white, papery bark). He waved his hand in the general direction Sam would be going, and reached over for his mask—discarded in the muck—before he stood and settled it over his face. The stony false leer of its expression sent a little shiver of goosebumps up Sam's arms but he held a cheerful demeanor.

"See you... some other time?"

Gabriel tilted his head but didn't answer.

Sam bit at his thumbnail, and turned away with one awkward little wave.

Gabriel watched him, and stood in the clearing for a while, and the sun set in a conflagration of scarlet and fuchsia.

He sat on the rock. His tattoos seemed to move in the dim light, like the ink was alive under his skin.

He lay back on his split boulder and raised an arm up above him, fingers splayed out wide. Maybe he'd use what little energy he retained that evening to warp himself somewhere nearby. He could find a pedophile or a rapist or a murderer who would subsequently vanish in a mysterious and probably bloody manner.

Or maybe he'd just stay in the forest by the river for a while.

...

Dean grimaced. "Wait, you _saw_ Gabriel?" He shifted in his seat, and shoved his dinner—a club sandwich—to the side. He settled his elbows on the wooden table in the café. Focused green eyes (the same color as damp moss on the sides of trees in the early morning) on his younger brother. "Where?"

"I dunno, Dean!" Sam flattened his palms along the tabletop and raised his eyebrows. "In a forest? It's all a little fuzzy, since I was kidnapped by a _cult_." He lifted one hand to drag it across his face and back through his hair, and shook his head. He leaned back in his chair. "It was just... I dunno, man, he seemed off."

Dean grimaced. "Off, _how_?"

"Well, he was just... Scary. You know? Less peppy and more... Sinister." Sam tapped his fingers along the edge of the table. "I mean, I've read the descriptions of him in that... fanfic thing... but... it was _weird_."

"Well that's just dandy." Dean leaned his head back against his chair with a sigh.

"If I may... interject..."

The Winchester brothers turned their heads in unison, to face Castiel, who sat beside Sam, wearing one of Dean's old henleys and a battered pair of jeans. He blinked once, fingers curling against the tabletop. "I... think Gabriel has dealt poorly with his death, and subsequent resurrection." He kept his eyes locked on Dean—unsurprising. "It's unlikely he retained many fond feelings of the world at large, when he died. I felt his light go out..." He stilled for a moment. "It was a big light, and it left a big shadow."

Sam nodded, and twitched out half of a sympathetic smile before patting Castiel's shoulder. Cas half-smiled at him.

Dean eyed them both. "Jesus Christ." He rubbed his face.


	19. A BOTTLE OF ANCIENT SHIRAZ

very short chapter so I'm gonna upload 20 real quick too

...

"Hey, Cas." Dean rolled his beer bottle in his hands. The bartop beneath his elbows glistened under blue lights.

"What is it, Dean?"

"Sorry about your family bein' full of dicks, and stuff." Dean shrugged. "'Bout Gabriel, and all that."

Castiel smiled. Not wide or toothy. Just... smiled. "You have nothing to apologize for." He paused, glancing down at his lap. "And... not _all_ of my family is... 'full of dicks,' as you say."

"Yeah, I guess that Anna chick was okay. Maybe Balthazar, if you squint real hard." Dean snorted.

Castiel shook his head. "I was talking about you and Sam, Dean." He tapped a finger against the bar. "You two are as much family to me as Balthazar or Anna ever were. More, even."

"O—oh." Dean gulped down a mouthful of beer. "That's cool."

Castiel nodded.


	20. KING WITH NO CROWN

Crowley, the once-great, self-proclaimed King of Hell, sat shivering and shackled to a wingback chair in the depths of an abandoned mansion, out in the marshes of Florida. He wasn't cold—far from it. He was terrified, and in pain. Blood spider-webbed across his face and dripped between his fingers and coated his bare chest. His eyes were red.

Abaddon twirled her silver-bladed, leather-handled knife. Very similar to an angel's blade, but a little sharper, with the type of runes gouged into the side that made it acceptable for killing and harming demons.

She smiled down at her captive. "You've been quite the little upstart, haven't you?" She scoffed, lips dark in the glow of a candlelit chandelier. "I mean, I travel time through several decades and I come to 2013 only to find out that a mere salesman has usurped the throne while his prince remains locked up? Christ, what a shock." She stopped the knife's spin. "I mean _really_. It's... _disgusting_." On the last word, she jammed her weapon through the back of Crowley's hand and into the moldy upholstery of the chair she'd strapped him to.

He cried out between clenched teeth. His nostrils flared, edged in dried blood, and he glared at her.

She rolled her eyes. "Presumptuous little _worm_." She tightened her fingers around the hilt of her knife. "You ought to learn your place," Pulled the blade out with a jerk of her arm. "_commoner_."

Crowley shut his eyes, and when Abaddon dipped her blood-slick knife into a canister of salt and dug it into his shoulder he swallowed back screams.

...

The tickle of Susan's whiskers and a gentle pressure on his shoulder woke Chuck at two in the morning. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he opened his eyes to come face-to-face with Michael. He also let out a squeak. Susan slunk away from his pillow.

"Apologies." Michael looked sheepish. "I didn't mean to frighten you. Um..." He glanced away, and scratched the back of his neck. "I don't want to be a burden, but... Lucifer... kicked me out of the bed. He said I was kicking him." He held his pillow close to his chest, looking for all the world like a little child woken with nightmares.

Chuck sighed, wilting against the sheets. He scooted to the far end of the bed. Pulled the covers back and muttered, "Just get in."

Michael nodded. He climbed into bed with Chuck, setting his own pillow up just how he liked it, and lay down so he faced the other man. He focused his eyes on Chuck, still and curious.

Chuck squirmed. "That's... kind of creepy. The staring thing," he whispered. "Could you... stop?"

"I apologize." Michael looked away. "It's only that... the cut on your face... I feel bad. I know I didn't do it, and objectively it isn't my fault, but... I still feel guilty." He held his finger out to Susan, who had slithered up between them, and she nosed his hand curiously. He ran his palm across the soft fur of her face. She purred.

Chuck smiled softly. "It doesn't hurt so bad." He met Michael's eyes. "Though the sparkly band-aid feels a little undignified in public."

"They intrigued me." Michael frowned. "My apologies if they're not to your liking."

"No—they're fine, Mike." Chuck reached across and flicked his shoulder. "Really."

Michael hummed.

Eventually, he spoke up again. "Would it be too much to ask... for you to maybe lie a little closer—not touching, necessarily. I'm merely..." He seemed to blush, but it was hard to tell in the shadows. "Unused to sleeping alone." He corrected himself—"Partially alone." He frowned, clearly frustrated with his words.

Chuck rolled his eyes and shifted a few centimeters closer, and slung his arm to bridge the gap between the two of them—so his hand rested on Michael's waist and his elbow rested on Susan's furry body. He smiled, eyebrows raised. "Good enough?"

"I—Yes." Michael looked away. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it." Chuck closed his eyes. "Seriously. Don't ever mention this to anyone."

Michael grinned—though, of course, Chuck didn't see. "I won't." And he closed his eyes as well.

In the other bed, Lucifer peered at them. He smirked, and waited in the shadows until the others' breathing evened and slowed, and when he was sure they were asleep, he snatched his phone from the side table, turned the lights on, and took a picture.

Chuck snuffled in his sleep, but didn't wake up.

Susan eyed Lucifer suspiciously. He put a finger to his lips, and she yawned at him before settling her chin on her paws again.

In the morning, Chuck awoke with his face smooshed against Michael's shoulder and one arm thrown over his side. Michael lay on his stomach, with his arms shoved under his pillow and one leg stuck between Chuck's knees. Susan was curled up on his lower back, tail tucked over her eyes.

Chuck shoved himself away, wiping a little bit of spit from the corner of his mouth. He grimaced. Michael stirred and pressed his face into his pillow.

On the other bed, Lucifer chuckled.

Chuck glared at him. "Shut up, Lu."

"I didn't utter a _word_." Lucifer shrugged, raising his hands. "And I still hate that nickname, by the way."

Michael's voice came from under the covers, muffled and grumpy—"Brother, could you please be quiet?"

It was Chuck's turn to smirk, then. Lucifer stuck his tongue (forked and disturbing) out and rolled onto his other side. Chuck settled back down beside Michael, and only protested a little when the other man basically manhandled Chuck closer, and used him as a teddy bear, with his arms and legs wrapped tight around his body.

...

Gabriel had discovered one very crucial thing, in his travels of the past few days.

If it ran on electricity, he could manipulate it—whether it was the human body or a security camera.

As he practiced using his powers on unsuspecting criminals and passing animals, he realized he was almost at the level he had been before his death. It was a little more taxing, and he needed to recharge for longer periods of time when he pulled particularly large stunts but... All in all, it was very similar. Just more... hands on.

So, although he could not materialize chocolate out of thin air, he _could_ force the vending machine before him to work without using money. Which was good. Because he only had twenty dollars to his name, and he wanted to use them for something other than food. Namely, as a distraction so he could steal a digital camera, a laptop, and a pair of boots. His flimsy pair of sneakers from Payless had worn out almost immediately, and he wanted to be able to record his travels and use the internet.

He made several stops.

In the technology section of Target, late at night, he turned all the security cameras away from him and dropped his twenty dollar bill on the ground. As the only person working there that night stooped to pick up the cash, he grabbed a digital camera from one of the display racks and within a split second warped himself out of the building. He stumbled when his barely-covered feet hit the sidewalk, but recovered quickly. He eyed the red camera in his hands. Worth $200 and he hadn't paid a cent. Definitely set off a security alarm though.

He did something similar in a little silver Apple store. After diverting the security cameras by sending their lens focus haywire, he sauntered over to the lone employee. Asked him if he could please see a new computer—if he could see how it would need to be set up. Flirted heavily. Asked the price. Continued to flirt. He wore the poor young salesman down and convinced him to give up a little kiss. And when their lips met, he set his hand on the casing of the laptop and disappeared.

He imagined the young man must have been extremely confused.

The boots were easiest. He tried them on, walked around a bit in them. Kept his back to some security cameras and kept the others away from his face.

Then he made the cash registers explode and ran out of the shoe store as fast as he could. He snapped his fingers when his feet hit the pavement and found himself tripping into a flower bed in front of a large house at least twenty minutes' walk away. He face-planted into some wilting daisies. Luckily the MacBook landed in the lawn and the camera fell right beside it, so the only casualties were a scrape on his right wrist and a scuff on the toe of his new boot.

"Dammit, why'd that bump have to be right there?" Gabriel pushed himself up onto his elbows. Behind him, the sidewalk had heaved up over a tree root, making a rather dangerous ledge of concrete—the very thing he'd tripped on. Bad luck in teleporting, he supposed. He ducked his head and licked the lightly bleeding scrape on the jut of his wrist.

Two dun-colored hiking boots stopped in front of his face. "I saw you fall from across the street." The feet were connected to a pair of very long legs covered in very flattering, fashionably distressed blue jeans. "Are you alright?" The legs, in turn, stemmed from a handsome young woman with an impressive rack and wavy brown hair down to her ass. She looked concerned.

Gabriel laughed. "I'm fine." He sat up, gathering his new things from the garden. "Just the usual clumsiness, you know?" When the girl stuck her hand out, he let himself be pulled to his feet.

"I know exactly what you mean." She beamed down at him, and when she beamed her cheeks dimpled. "I ran into a wall yesterday." She had blue-green eyes. And a button nose. "I'm Anthea, by the way." Very pretty hands, too.

Gabriel grinned at her. "...I'm Loki." He shook her hand. "Nice to meet you, Anthea. Wanna get a drink?"

"A drink?" Anthea was very tall. At least six foot. "Sorry, I've got a uh..." She shrugged. "A thing."

"Oh. Okay." Gabriel cleared his throat, feeling decidedly awkward and perhaps a little strange. "Nice meeting you."

Anthea nodded her head enthusiastically, white teeth flashing when she smiled. "Maybe I'll run into you some other time, Loki."

"Doubt it. I'm just passing through." Gabriel saluted her, and walked past her at a brisk pace. His expression was one of mortification and wide-eyed terror. He hadn't failed _that_ badly since Sam's sheer obliviousness back when they first met.

He dragged in a shallow breath. Chanced a glance over his shoulder to see Anthea stepping into a black Mustang convertible. The woman in the passenger seat—with short brown hair—gave her a playful punch to the shoulder before speeding off.

While he was preoccupied with watching the car disappear, he ran into a telephone pole.

"Shit!" He pressed a palm to a scratch on his cheek where a crooked nail had caught him. "Jesus Christ." It came away bloody. He licked his thumb and rubbed it over the nick until the pain lessened somewhat. He imagined there was still a mark, though. "Is this karma for stealing?" he wondered, looking up at the sky. Black clouds roiled but no rain fell.

A streak of white lightning struck the pole and sent down a spray of charred wood and sparks. He flinched away, arm thrown up to keep himself from being blinded by the sudden flash and to protect his face from debris. Almost within the same moment he heard a sharp crackle and the deafening sound of thunder from directly overhead. It shook the pebbles on the ground.

"Hooooly fuck," Gabriel lowered his arm. The telephone pole smoked where it had been hit.

Every window on the street had gone dark.

"Not my fault."

A candle flickered to life in the window of the house he stood closest to.


	21. LESS LIKE A LAKE AND MORE LIKE A MOAT

Another short one. Sorry. Tomorrow's will be at least over 1800, and in a bit they should actually begin to lengthen and the short in-between Cas-centric chapters will actually disappear. So I uh hope you weren't reading this for Cas (or destiel) :P

...

Castiel drifted in and out of sleep as they roared down the disturbingly empty highway. The Impala's engine grumbled, and the flat landscape zoomed by in a gray blur, and the sky flickered with electricity behind them while ahead it was clear and black and scattered with stars.

The soft sound of Sam and Dean's voices made him relax and droop in his seat. Sam's, especially, had that gentle quality that came with selfless people whose souls shone warm and golden. Dean's, on the other hand, was strangely abrasive but also calming—almost too deep to hear when he spoke so quietly.

From the radio filtered the words "If I had another last chance and we met again for the first time I would listen to your heart." Sam had chosen the station.

Castiel's eyes drifted shut.

The floor beneath his shoes vibrated with the grind of the engine and the roughness of the road.

He listened to the brothers talk over the sound of songs he'd never known.


	22. POCKETS FULL OF STONES

I know not much is happening lately, but give it some time. Chapter 29 will be plenty dramatic. :3

...

Early morning sunshine filtered through thin white clouds, as Chuck led Lucifer and Michael up his driveway.

The evacuation warning had been rescinded, and most of the minor damage his hometown sustained had been repaired already, so they'd gotten the first train ticket they could, and now they stood in a somewhat damp cul-de-sac. There was mild staining on the sides of Chuck's house from muddy water, but other than that... Not much damage.

When he opened his front door, the carpet was clean and dry.

Thank God for floors that weren't settled at ground level.

"I don't have a spare bed, so..." Chuck grimaced. "We're either all going to have to sleep in the same bed, or one of you gets the floor and the other gets the couch." He hoped they'd pick the latter, as he set Susan's box on the messy kitchen table. She hopped out with a happy meow.

Of course, his hopes were dashed.

"I vote we share." Lucifer smirked. He immediately began to rummage through the kitchen cupboards, and grabbed a box of probably stale Goldfish. "The idea of trapping you between me and Michael is so tantalizing." He threw a handful of the orange crackers into his mouth.

Chuck rolled his eyes heavenward, with a sigh. "Of course it is." He pulled a little packet of wet cat food he'd picked up at a gas station from his pocket and emptied it into a smallish-sized Tupperware bowl, setting it on the floor for Susan to eat. He filled an unused ashtray he'd long had no purpose for with water and placed that down as well. He stroked Susan's ears while she ate.

Michael sat at the table. The old chair creaked under his weight. While Lucifer and the cat ate, he fidgeted, and eventually took out his phone and stared at it as if it would tell him the secrets of the world. He swiped at it a few times. Pressed the screen at random, and tilted his head.

"Did you break it already?" Chuck leaned against the wall.

Michael shook his head. "It's asking for something called a 'wiffee password.'" He gave the iPhone a glare of consternation.

Chuck laughed. "The Wi-Fi password? It's so you can connect to my internet. Push the little letters on the screen—type 'access denied' with no spaces." He stood up and walked over to Michael's side, leaning over his shoulder, and pointed at the screen. He helped Michael navigate to Netflix once the phone unlocked. He logged in, quickly, and tilted the screen toward Michael. "Here, you can watch some movies. Brush up on the mystery of the modern world, or something. Press on the pictures to watch." He made sure Michael saw what icons he touched. "And there you go." He smiled.

Michael eyed the flimsy contraption between his hands, as the sound of Morgan Freeman's voice came tinny and muffled from the speakers. "That's... simpler than I expected."

Chuck laughed. "Many people would disagree." He scanned the kitchen, looking for something. His eyes landed on a tangled pair of ear buds in the counter and he grinned. He snatched them up, and plugged them into Michael's phone. "Put these in." He showed Michael how the headphones went in, and Michael's eyes widened.

"Amazing." Michael tilted the phone, and the screen spun. He pulled his hand away, baffled. "Did I do something it didn't like?"

Chuck shook his head, and reached down to turn it again. "It does that so you can use it either sideways or right-side-up. Sideways is better for movies though."

"Oh." Michael eyed the screen, enraptured. Digital renditions of planets zoomed across it. Chuck could tell he was quickly becoming distracted by the documentary he'd chosen at random. He hoped it would occupy him long enough for Chuck to make sure everything in his home worked properly. Lucifer's constant pestering would be irritating enough—he didn't need a stream of questions from Michael as well.

He set up the stairs. Lucifer trailed after him, commenting on the state of his carpeting and wallpaper. Chuck weaved his way through the bathroom, and his bedroom (more rude comments), and his storage room—home to precarious stacks of paper and old technology and probably some mice. Nothing amiss other than the usual clutter. Back downstairs through the living room and the laundry room. The radio was fried but the television went on just fine. All the lights worked but for the bare bulb in the laundry room. The toilet in the half-bathroom was a little dusty, but generally okay.

The fridge was a sight to behold. It was mostly empty, but a bowl of soup Chuck had been meaning to throw out for ages sat gathering mold. He dumped the whole thing, bowl and all, into the trash with disgust and washed his hands. Lucifer laughed at him.

When he turned around, he saw Michael hunched over the table, utterly absorbed in his movie.

"What a nerd." Lucifer leaned on the counter.

Chuck kicked his ankle, and Lucifer hissed.

"Ow!" He glowered down at Chuck, who glanced away innocently. "What the hell was that for, jackass?"

Chuck shrugged. "It was an accident." He became acutely aware of the band-aid on his cheek. Hoped he hadn't just made a dire mistake. "I swear."

"An accident." Lucifer repeated. He leaned close, until his forehead touched Chuck's. "You know, I think I'll sleep on top of you tonight." He smiled, sweet and false and threatening. "You look nice and _squishy_, after all."

Chuck sighed and rubbed his temple, closing his eyes. "I'm told I'm too bony to be a good pillow."

"Oh, I'm sure I won't mind."

"Of course not."

...

Kansas, Gabriel thought, was extremely drab. At least, the area he'd sent himself to. To be fair, it was an old country side-road that probably hadn't been repaved in forty years. It was mostly rubble and dirt.

A pathetic baby deer, with a minor wound on its flank and far too many visible ribs, limped along about twenty feet behind him. When he stopped, it stopped. When he stepped forward, it started up again. Its eyes were wild, big and brown and glossy, edged in white. It trembled.

Gabriel wondered if vertigo and potential unconsciousness would be worth turning into a wolf, to scare it away—he knew he could do it. As Loki, he'd always had a thing for shape shifting. But in the past few centuries he'd mainly switched between generally human shapes. He didn't know if he would be able to do it without immediately collapsing or something equally pathetic.

He glanced at the fawn over his shoulder.

Its ears flicked and its nostrils flared.

"C'mon, Bambi!" Gabriel whirled around, throwing his eyes out wide, and it jumped. "Can't you smell what I'm made of?!" He pushed his hair back from his masked face. "Even _I_ know what I'm made of and I wasn't alive when Coyote put it in me! Why do animals migrate to a man made of dead things and poison?!" He stared at the little shivering thing. It blinked at him, but didn't back away. "Do I smell like berries? Is that it?" He took a step closer. The baby deer stood its ground, surprisingly.

He held his hand out, palm to the sky. Droplets of rain landed in it. With fear in its eyes but boldness in its step, the fawn drew itself closer to Gabriel until it could snuffle at the tips of his fingers. Gabriel shook his head, rolling his eyes. He stroked his hand over the fur on the fawn's face and trailed his fingertip across the soft curve of its ear. His skin sparked where it touched the deer's fur.

Finally, Gabriel gave in. "Come here. Lay down with me." He sank to his knees in the mud, drawing the deer down by its neck until it lay down on the road. It laid its head in Gabriel's lap. "Jesus Christ. I feel like a unicorn trap." He smoothed his palms down its neck, and over its knobby legs, and finally set one hand flat against the gash in its side. "This what you want? Healing?" Red static bounced between his skin and the fawn's flank. The wound healed bit by bit, until the only evidence remaining was the blood clotted in brown fur.

Gabriel looked down at the deer. "Better?"

It wobbled to its feet and ran away.

"Selfish animal!" Gabriel stood up with a slight sway and threw a small rock in the direction it had gone. "Use me up and leave me, will ya?! Ugh." He scraped the mud off his knees and shoved his hands into his pockets and started walking again. "I swear to God, if he tells his little friends there's a healer and they start flocking to me for all their cuts I'm gonna slaughter 'em all and eat 'em for breakfast." As if triggered by the mention of food, his stomach gurgled.

He groaned. "I hate the world."

The rain fell harder, as he stumbled down the road. He wished he had a jacket. But all he had were the clothes on his back, the camera in his pocket, the mask on his face, and the laptop hanging in its case from his neck. Not much. No money, no food, no transportation unless he wanted to pass out, no protection from the elements. Nothing.

He kicked a chunk of what might have once been asphalt into the weeds in the ditch beside the road.

...

Lucifer did not make good on his promise to sleep on top of Chuck, thankfully. Chuck did, however, find himself sandwiched between two men almost twice his size, with his back against Lucifer's broad chest and his legs tangled with Michael's.

It was extremely hard to fall asleep. Especially when Lucifer pushed even closer so that his entire body lined up almost seamlessly with Chuck's, and when Michael slid one leg between _both_ of their thighs.

Michael's breath gusted soft and warm against his shoulder. Susan's tail twitched against his chin. (She'd shoved herself between his neck and Michael's chest.) Lucifer's hand curled on his hip. He finally drifted asleep around two in the morning, warm and oddly comfortable.

He woke much too early—the clock blinked 5:13 at him—with Lucifer's cold nose shoved against the back of his neck and Michael's lips pressed to his forehead. He could not fall back asleep no matter how hard he tried. Just wouldn't work.

He extricated himself from their limbs at 6:30 in the morning and wobbled to the bathroom, locking himself in and running a shower. The pipes rumbled and the water came out too hot at first, then too cold, and then a decent lukewarm temperature. Leaning his forehead against the tiled wall, exhausted, he let himself be soaked.


	23. IN OUR COURSE TO THE STARS

Sam frowned at his computer screen. Why was Gabriel in Kansas? Was he in Kansas in that moment, or had he passed through already? Or was he going to be in Kansas in the near future? Sam shook his head, and put his computer away in the bag at his feet, and watched a flock of ducks alight in the skinny river he sat beside. They quacked loud and excited when a child tossed a handful of breadcrumbs into the water. The sky was pretty and blue. A warm drizzle, more like mist than any kind of rain, softened the air. Leaves rustled in the slight breeze.

Castiel—in his own clothes, now, bought from a thrift shop—sat beside Sam on the bench. He held a Styrofoam container in his hands, and a small plastic bag. He handed the bag to Sam, who looked inside. Packaged salad from Safeway and a blueberry muffin. Sam smiled.

"Thanks, man."

With a tilt of his head, Castiel said, "Dean seems to be under the impression that you eat only lettuce, but I thought the pastry would be nice." He opened his own food—French fries and a grilled sandwich filled with cheese and tomatoes and lettuce and chicken. "I imagine only salad gets old after a while. I myself can no longer stomach hamburger." He frowned. Nibbled on a fry. "I almost chose a slice of cake for you, but Dean laughed and made me put it back."

"Too bad," Sam picked off a chunk from the muffin and popped it into his mouth. "I actually kinda like cake."

Castiel nodded. "I know."

"What're you two old ladies doin'?" Dean, with a hamburger in one hand and a glass bottle of Coca-Cola in the other, shoved himself down between Castiel and Sam and slung his arms across their shoulders. "Gossiping about me?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "More like complaining." He snapped the lid off of his Caesar salad. "Don't talk with your mouth full."

"What're you, my mom?" Dean shoved Sam with his knee but dutifully swallowed his food before opening his mouth again. "Brighten up, Sammy. We'll be home in no time."

Sam laughed, stabbing at wilted leaves of lettuce and cold chicken. He looked up at his brother. "Yeah?" He shook his head. "Good, 'cause I'm sick of this cruddy food, and I bet Cas can't wait to try your cooking." He stuffed his mouth full of salad and chewed with what could only be called disgust, and stared at the ducks on the water.

"I _am_ a pretty good cook, aren't I?"

"Considering _how_ you learned to cook, yeah." Sam sighed. "Amazingly good."

Castiel felt himself smile slightly, listening to the Winchesters trade both insults and compliments. He looked up at the sky. He hoped it would stay clear through the night so they could stop on the side of the road and watch the stars.


	24. MEDICATING IN THE SUN

"I am your king!"

Abaddon sheathed the knife in her boot, looking Crowley's bloodied form up and down. "Not anymore, you're not. Pathetic upstart." She smoothed a stray strand of windblown hair from her forehead, nails flashing. And she smirked, and snapped her fingers.

The abandoned house was left empty once more, but for dust and memories and two uninhabited bodies.

Abaddon had taken Crowley back to Hell.

...

Gabriel sank to his knees on the edge of the road. Miniscule droplets of rain dripped from the sky and scattered across his hot skin, soothing. He looked up at the sky. Closed his eyes. Let out a breath, and let his hands hang at his side. A bird eyed him from its perch above the entrance of the Men of Letters Headquarters.

"Thank fuck."

The Impala wasn't there, so neither were the Winchesters. But _he_ was there. Finally. And he could just sit himself down and rest. Gather his strength and breathe. He continued to kneel in the gravel and listened to the sound of the breeze in the leaves. A storm was gathering itself up to wreak havoc. He could feel it—it wanted to reach down and rip trees from the ground and pummel houses into dust but it wouldn't. Instead it would settle for tearing leaves from limbs and shingles from shacks.

As Gabriel gathered himself, he heard a sound. A soft creak.

Then, "Oh my God."

Canadian accent. Interesting. Unfamiliar. He opened his eyes to see a rather petite young Asian man holding a cellphone to his ear.

Strange. Gabriel didn't recognize him, and he was fairly sure the Winchesters generally worked alone.

But the young man said into his phone, "Sam! There's some guy with tattoos about to pass out on the doorstep!"

Words shot back and forth, what was obviously a description of Gabriel, intense listening. The kid muttered, "Yeah, he looks like the description you gave me before—red tattoos. Is it really...?"

Gabriel watched him nod and hang up, and stayed very still as the boy approached him.

"You're Gabriel, right?" He held out his hand. "I'm Kevin Tran. A prophet. I work with the Winchesters. Kind of."

Gabriel eyed Kevin's hand wordlessly, before reaching up and allowing himself to be pulled to his feet. He met Kevin's eyes and stared. "Kevin Tran." He smirked. "Nice to meet you, Kev. Please call me Loki."

"Um—alright." Kevin fidgeted. He moved toward the still-open door, and jerked his hand in its direction. "You uh... You look kinda beat. Do you want something to eat or... something? What do angels eat?"

Gabriel laughed, as he followed Kevin into the bunker. Stepping across the threshold, he felt a shiver go up his spine and it almost felt good but it stung a little bit. Wards. He listened to the door boom shut behind him and finally spoke. "I could probably eat an entire buffalo right about now."

"Yeah?" Kevin smiled over his shoulder, nervous but determined not to show it, seemingly. "Well... We don't have a buffalo, but I've got some leftover minestrone soup I can heat up for you...?"

Gabriel grinned at him. "Kev. You are a saint." He clapped Kevin on the back before tossing himself into the nearest chair and slumping against the table. The cool wood felt fantastic against his forehead and he was glad to be able to sit still and stretch his legs out with a cushion under his ass.

Kevin nodded, clearly slightly disoriented by the entire experience, and went about heating up soup on a rather kitschy vintage stove.

Gabriel almost fell asleep.

He was woken by a gentle hand on his elbow and the smell of cooked tomatoes. He blinked up at Kevin Tran with a small noise. Then noticed the steaming bowl in front of him on the table. He grinned. "Thank you," He sat up straighter and pulled the bowl toward him. "I'm starving." He wasted no time in immediately drinking from the bowl, foregoing the spoon entirely for the time being. Its heat scorched his mouth and throat but he couldn't care less, with the burns healing about as fast as they formed and warmth filling his belly.

Kevin looked rather taken aback, but he kept quiet, and merely sat a few feet away from Gabriel.

When Gabriel finished, he leaned back in his chair, with the front legs leaving the floor. He shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at Kevin. Kevin fidgeted and tried not to look _too_ disturbed. They eyed each other for a long silent while, until Gabriel let his chair fall down onto all fours with a loud bang. Kevin flinched.

"So, Kev!" Gabe hooked his thumbs through his belt loops, leaning forward. "When're the boys supposed to get here?"

"Oh—pretty soon, actually." He glanced down at his watch, and flicked his shaggy hair from his eyes. (He needed a haircut pretty badly.) "When you got here they were already close by."

"Good." Gabriel stretched his arms up, and his shirt rode up. He let out a heavy breath. "Good, I need to... _talk_... to Sambo." He winked. "If you know what I mean."

Kevin just rolled his eyes. "I'm sure he'll look forward to that."

Gabriel nodded. "He better."

...

Chuck fidgeted with the hem of his sweater. (Thick and woolen and soft, and a little out of season but goddammit it was cold despite being springtime.) He rubbed his eyes. "Jesus, I'm tired." He shuffled through the kitchen, setting the coffee maker going, and leaned on the counter. Outside his window a sparrow sat on a narrow branch and chirped. He watched it. The house sat fairly silent and still, but for the buzz of the refrigerator.

When the stairs creaked, the sound went all through each room, running along the ceiling and down the walls. Soft and squeaky and a little like a violin trying to catch at its string and failing. Chuck made his way to the thin doorway of the kitchen and leaned out, to watch Michael emerge from the dark stairwell into the living room—lit by the large front window in purple-gray and golden tones from the still-watery sky.

Michael smiled, gently, at Chuck. Neither said a word as he approached. Chuck just yawned and grabbed another mug and set a dented box of stale Lucky Charms—he was out of milk—on the table. Michael sat down and read the back of the box, eyes flickering back and forth, silver and soft under the darkness of his eyelashes. He stuck his hand in the box and pulled out a handful of mostly marshmallows. (Chuck had a tendency to pick them out and put them back in the box. He didn't like how chalky they were.) He ate a few, one at a time, and hummed thoughtfully.

Chuck watched Michael eat a few more dull pastel lumps of sugar as he poured black coffee into the mugs on the counter. After a moment's thought he pulled another down from the cupboard and filled that as well. The edge was chipped but it was for Lucifer so Chuck didn't really care. He left it on the counter, took up his own coffee, and set Michael's in front of him.

"It'll be bitter," Chuck smiled apologetically. "I'm out of milk and the creamer's gone bad. Sorry."

Michael nodded. He sipped from his mug and grimaced, and sipped again. "It's too hot." He pressed a fingertip to his lips, and glanced down at his coffee. "But I don't mind the bitterness." He looked up at Chuck, eyes sort of innocent and wide as they so often were, and tilted his head. The dusty light filtering through the kitchen sent shadows across his face—of his lashes, of the tree branches outside, of a bird flying across the yard.

"Well... um..." Chuck scratched the back of his neck. "Enjoy?" He turned away fairly quickly, feeling his face grow warm, and before he could take a step he collided with Lucifer's broad form. He dropped his mug, and it shattered, and scalding coffee showered both his and Lucifer's feet with shards of ceramic. Chuck swore, hissing in a shallow breath.

Lucifer shoved Chuck away with a curse. Chuck fell to the ground, landing on his behind.

"What is _wrong_ with you?" Lucifer scuttled away to the bathroom, and from the sounds of it, was searching for something. He finally returned with the first aid kit Chuck kept under the sink. He looked down at where Chuck sat, stunned and in some pain, and he glared. "Michael, sweep up the _broken glass_." The way he stressed the words showed undisguised disdain, as he sat in Michael's now-vacated chair and proceeded to tend to the tops of his toes. He'd gotten only a bit of coffee on him but it still stung.

Chuck, on the other hand, had gotten the brunt of the hot liquid. He drew his knees up and tried not to move his feet, and buried his face in his folded arms with a small whimper. He felt pretty pathetic. Beyond pathetic. Clumsy and useless. He focused on his breathing and tried to ignore the tight heat on the tops of his feet.

But something soft and cool touched them, and he peered out from his arms to see Lucifer kneeling in front of him with a wet rag in one hand and Michael's iPhone in the other. He kept his eyes on the screen while he cleaned the coffee from Chuck's feet, and frowned deeply. Chuck stared at him until his eyes flicked up, and their gazes met.

Lucifer smirked. "It looks like a first degree burn but this says if it's on your feet you should seek emergency medical care." He shrugged, and tossed the phone over his shoulder, to Michael who caught it with a panicked look and almost dropped it. Lucifer set his cloth aside and glared at Chuck's feet. "You can't drive with burned feet, can you?"

Chuck shook his head. He didn't trust his voice to come out as anything less than pitiable and squeaky. "I—I don't—?" Yup. Squeaky.

"Figured." Lucifer rolled his eyes—but something in their cold blueness was discordant with his nonchalant air. He dragged Chuck to his feet and slid his arm around the smaller man's waist and Chuck frowned, forehead creasing.

"Are you—" Chuck smiled. "Are you _worried_ about me?"

Lucifer shot him a slow, smooth glare. "No." He pulled Chuck to the front door, and when he opened it and saw the puddled, muddy ground he groaned and looked up at the sky. "Gotta be fucking kidding me." He glowered at the swathe of dirty water before them.

Behind them, Michael stood. "Should I call the hospital?"

"No, no." Lucifer waved his free hand. "This doesn't really warrant an ambulance." He turned to Chuck, and smiled. "But we can't have you getting your feet all dirty, can we? Nor can we put shoes on you. So..." He spread his arms wide. "How about it?"

Chuck blinked. Then tried to back away, but he bumped into Michael. "No way, Lu!" He frowned—maybe pouted. "I don't want to be carried! I'm not a baby!" He crossed his arms tight in front of himself and stared Lucifer down. Lucifer's eyes flicked to meet Michael's and raised his eyebrows.

For a second, Michael didn't move, but then he wrapped one strong arm around Chuck's waist and crouched—bringing Chuck down with him and hooking his other arm behind Chuck's knees to lift him up bridal-style. Chuck yelped.

"I don't know how to drive," Lucifer hooked his thumbs into his pockets as he walked bare-footed through the massive puddle in front of the doorway. He glanced over his shoulder. "How about you, Mikey?"

Michael shook his head. "I don't." He stepped through the cold, dirty water. He'd found time to put on shoes, though, so his feet were protected from getting wet. He trailed after Lucifer.

Chuck rolled his eyes.

"I don't have a car, you guys." He squirmed in Michael's grip, so his head rested in the crook of Michael's neck and his shoulder pressed against his chest. "I had a bike but it was pretty useless so I sold it not long after I came back from... well... being dead." He met Lucifer's eyes. "I don't _need_ to go to the hospital anyway. It's just a mild burn—"

Lucifer narrowed his eyes, and crossed his arms, and sighed. "You're pathetic."

Chuck nodded. "I know." He grimaced, annoyed. He closed his eyes and turned his face into Michael's neck. "Can we just go back inside?"

"Fine."

Lucifer walked around them, and through the puddle again, so the bottom of his jeans were soaked, and hauled himself inside. He left the door wide open and disappeared into the shadows of the house. Michael followed him. The door shut with a click and cut off bright streams of sunlight and made the hallway dark but not unpleasant. Michael refused to let Chuck down, and carried him to the couch, and laid him down there, and smiled. Before leaving the room he pressed a fast kiss to Chuck's forehead—something he'd learned from watching movies for about twenty four hours straight on his phone.

Chuck lay dazed on the couch, and he blushed.

When Lucifer showed up once more with his brother's phone in hand and arms full of seemingly random things, he saw Chuck's expression and raised one eyebrow. "What? You think of something embarrassing?"

Chuck shook his head. "N- nothing. It's nothing."

"Ohhhhkay." Lucifer nodded. He dropped to the floor at the end of the couch and grabbed one of Chuck's feet—a little rough, but still careful. He spread aloe vera gel over the burns. He acted strangely... tender. And his eyes had an interesting feel to them—not as cutting or vibrant as usual. A little washed out, a little gray. Less the color of the sky and more the color of a weather-worn pebble. His eyebrows pulled together as he concentrated, and he had crow's feet.

"Don't stare. It's rude."

Chuck flinched, and received a smart thwack on the ankle for that. He flushed red, and looked out the front window. Lucifer returned to tending to his burns, and the house fell into a ponderous silence broken only by the sound of Susan lapping water from her dish.

Chuck found himself drifting off to sleep.

When he lay still on the couch, eyes closed, breathing softly, with Susan's furry body curled up on his stomach, Lucifer walked into the kitchen. Michael watched him fill a glass with water and drink from it, and leaned his elbows on the tabletop with his chin balanced on the backs of folded hands.

"You're growing fond of him."

Lucifer sneered. "Am not." He rinsed out his glass and set it on the wooden dish-rack. Quietly, he inspected the backs of his hands, with fingers curled around the edge of the sink. His thick, rough knuckles and the scarred backs of his hands looked pallid in the morning light and his vessel's—no... was it _his_ ring? His vessel's ring? It wasn't a vessel any longer, though. So... Nick's ring—glinted. "I just... don't want our only benefactor to die before I can kill him. Free food, free clothes, free phones. He does, after all, provide for us and it would be quite inconvenient if something happened to him."

"Yes, but... Brother," Michael's lips twitched in the slenderest of smiles. "A first or even second-degree burn is very unlikely to do him much harm. Yet you worry."

Lucifer scowled, and left the kitchen through the door to the backyard. It rattled when it shut behind him.

Michael shook his head.

"No brother of mine can fool me into believing he is not made of love."

Chuck snored in the living room.

...

(It's about damn time Gabriel got to where he was going.  
Also I originally said Chuck, Mike and Lu were going to meet up with TFW but that changed so don't expect that.  
Also I like to make Chuck suffer.)


	25. STARS WHEN YOU SHINE

"Hello, kids."

Gabriel watched the Winchester brothers enter the wide room, with his eyes fixed on them. He tilted back in his chair, and his boot scraped along the floor with a shushing sound, and his arms crossed, and he stared at Sam with eyes full of lightning.

Sam looked tired and thin and worn. Drawn. Like a wobbly sketch on translucent paper, with pink cheeks and lank hair.

Gabriel had thought it had been the effects of the whole sacrifice ordeal, before. Thought he only looked sick because he'd been bled and tied down and filled with smoke. Now he realized this was not the case. No, Sam was willowy and purple-eyed and his cheeks were hollowed out and his lips were drier than they ought to have been and he looked a mess with skinny shaking fingers.

"Ga—" Sam frowned. "Loki. Why are you here?" His eyes shone much less inviting than the last time they'd met. Beside him, Dean scowled, protective and fierce and clearly coiled to pounce.

With a shallow sigh—tiny gust of breath from his nose—Gabriel stood.

Behind his little brother, Dean tensed.

"Sam..." Gabe uncrossed and re-crossed his arms. His red shirt creased over his skin, and his jeans felt stiff on his legs. They needed to be cleaned. "Long time no see."

Sam made a strange face, and once he was near enough to the table he sank into a chair with barely trembling legs. "Um... we saw each other pretty recently." He looked far too tired for Gabriel's liking.

"Whatever." Gabriel approached Sam, and waved his hand at Dean—who was orbiting closer with Cas at his heels—dismissively, and leaned on the edge of the table. "I wanna talk to you." He gave Dean a pointed look. "_Alone_."

Dean rolled his eyes and finally backed off. "You touch him, I kill you. Got it?" His eyebrows shot up and he smiled grimly.

Gabe gave a snort. "Don't worry, Ken doll." He pushed away from the table and settled his hand on Sam's shoulder. "I won't hurt your precious baby boy." He slid his hand down Sam's arm until his fingers could curl around his far-too-narrow wrist and tugged the taller man to his feet. "Promise." So saying, he dragged Sam away. Sam went with no protest. Only a soft breath and a slight stumble.

They fell into the shadows in the back of a long hall with doorways branching into bricked bedrooms, and it was into one of these rooms they slipped. Bare for the most part, with a small photograph of a blue-green eyed blonde woman set on the pillow of the bed. Empty otherwise. Sam grabbed the picture and slipped it into his back pocket and looked at his feet and sat on the bed.

Neither spoke for a few seconds, until Sam opened his mouth and said, "Why are you here?"

"You told me we should meet again." Gabriel frowned. "So... here I am." He did a little twirl, in his dirty clothes, and shoved his hands into his pockets. The cold roundness of his shrunk mask pressed against his knuckles. His face had that calculated composition, with hard lines and tight mouth. Like that time, so many years earlier, in the abandoned warehouse, with artificial rain falling upon him like stardust. And his eyes did what they always did—they showed emotion. And Sam had no clue what emotion it was, only that it was deep and serious and slow-burning and it scared him a little bit. "I thought this was what you wanted, Sam."

Sam covered his mouth and closed his eyes, and breathed through his nose. "..._Loki_."

"Please, Sam."

"I was confused, last time. Okay?" Sam opened his eyes. They glowed nearly green in the lighting of his room, wide and worn. He swallowed, and his throat moved with it, and a muscle in his jaw twitched. "Drugged, and weak, and full of smoke. I... wasn't in my right mind."

Gabriel glanced to the open doorway. "You said 'yes,' Sam." The door shut with a soft click and a spark. His tongue flicked out to wet his lips. "You said 'yes.'"

"I know that, I know and... I just..." Sam gestured lamely.

Gabriel held his hand out, fingers outstretched. "You know I've only asked that question twice in my life?" He smiled. "First to Kali, way back when, trying to save our bacon. It was a joke." He snorted. "Sort of." He raised his head—tilted it back so his throat stretched long and his hair fell away from his face. "And the second time was you, and it was a half-joke then, too, but you went and answered it and you said 'yes'—"

Sam chewed on a thumbnail, nervous. "Gabriel, I—"

"Why'd you have to go and say that, Sam? You weren't supposed to say 'yes,' you were supposed to laugh or push me away in disgust or—I'm just a pathetic... idiot." Gabriel lifted his hands and pressed his palms to his upturned face. "You weren't supposed to say 'yes.'"

Sam stood. "Gabriel, I wasn't lying. But..." He drew closer, so he could almost touch Gabriel. Could hear his breath. "I just can't." He clenched his hand into a fist and looked down at it. "I can't."

"Why?" Gabriel lowered his fingers and his face and met Sam's eyes with a cool gaze, betrayed completely by his eyes. His eyes read as sad and disappointed and a little bit angry.

Breathing slowly and softly, Sam unclenched his hand and held it out, with his scarred palm facing upward to the ceiling. He didn't look away from Gabriel. "I can't forget the things you've done." He reached further and pulled both of Gabriel's much smaller hands into his own and wrapped his fingers tight and broke their linked gazes and studied Gabriel's fingertips.

Gabriel let out a gust of air. "Ah." He shook his head. "That—you're still sore about my practical jokes?" He grinned wide and bitter and it stretched so far as to show his teeth gleaming white and straight.

"That kind of attitude is another reason why I can't."

"Fine." Gabriel pulled his hands away and stepped back, rubbing his mouth. "Fine."

Sam made an aborted attempt to reach out once more, but drew his hand back. "I'm sorry, Gabri—" His jaw clenched. "Loki. Really. I am." He ran both hands back through his hair and it was made evident how much weight he'd lost—how diminished he had become—in the slope of his forehead and the height of his cheekbones and the cut of his jawline.

Gabriel fell very still.

He let out air slow and silent.

Deflated.

"Gabriel."

Sam's eyebrows pinched together. "What?"

"You can call me Gabriel."

"But—"

Gabe's lips twitched into half of a smile.

"I like the way that name sounds on your tongue." He closed his eyes, and seemed small. "It doesn't sound like a dirty word. Or angelic. Or anything. It just sounds... good. For once." He hovered there, in the dim room. And eventually his eyes opened. And they shivered the color of molten tree sap. "For once in my life, when I'm... I just..." He raised a splayed hand and his mouth twisted. Folded his fingers into a fist and spread them again. "Never mind."

Sam watched him slip to the door and out into the hallway, and stood alone in his room.

He looked down at the curved scar across his left palm.

"Someone like me?"

He traced his fingertips along his lifeline.

...

"Chuck." A quiet voice sifted through Chuck's dreams. "Wake up." He grumbled and frowned, and blinked his eyes open to darkness and a slight yellow glow edging the room—the streetlamp outside. He sat up.

"What?"

Michael smiled, and held out a plate piled with eggs and pop tarts. "We made you dinner, with what we could find..." He pressed the platter into Chuck's hands, and it was hot but not too hot to handle, and the eggs steamed with cheese melting on top of them, and the pop tarts' frosting ran. "Lucifer didn't even break anything."

Chuck frowned, bleary. "_What_ did Lu break?"

"Nothing. I said he _didn't_ break anything. Surprisingly." Michael grinned, and settled on the end of the couch. He was careful not to jostle Chuck's feet, and lifted them to sit across his thighs.

Lucifer's head popped round the corner from the kitchen. "I resent that!" He waved a stick of string cheese at them threateningly. He briefly disappeared, and then came out into the living room with a bowl full of yet more eggs and a spoon jammed into his mouth. He threw himself onto the floor in front of the couch and turned the television on with his toe. It crackled and cleared and showed fuzzy cartoons. He leaned back, and his ear barely brushed Chuck's elbow, and he stared at the screen while he shoveled food into his mouth.

Chuck rolled his eyes and ate with Michael watching him.

"Um... aren't you gonna eat?"

Michael twitched. "Hm? No." He shook his head. "I ate the first attempt." His teeth flashed in a grin, and his eyes squinted. "A little blackened but not too terrible." He glanced down at his hands.

Chuck laughed—not a giggle, not nervous, just... subdued and pleased.

Michael's thumb moved in rings against his shin.

Chuck ignored the soft buzz in the back of his head, of things to come that didn't affect the Winchesters. Ignored the things that would happen to him very soon, because he preferred a pleasant surprise to the anticipation of knowing how and what would happen but never precisely when. Only smiled to himself, and picked at his eggs, and enjoyed the warmth of Michael's legs under the backs of his ankles.

When he finished, he tapped Lucifer's head with the plate. "Would you please put this in the sink, Lu?"

"What am I, your maid?" Lucifer scowled, but he dragged himself to his feet and snatched the platter away. Disappeared from the room with silent footsteps.

Chuck watched him leave, and then scooted forward a bit and leaned closer to Michael, to whisper in his ear, "He's surprisingly obedient."

Michael tilted his face so that his cheek accidentally bumped Chuck's nose. "My brother harbors a weakness for the fallen and wounded." His mouth curved in a gentle smile. Beatific, even. As cliché as the term is. Chuck's eyes were drawn to it, as Michael spoke. "He is truly much kinder than he would have you believe. Despite his rare violent outbursts."

"Yeah." Chuck's voice dropped, at the memory. He became hyper-aware of his still-healing cut. "Yeah, I guess that's true. Listen, uh..." He glanced past Michael, to the kitchen doorway. It stood black and empty, with the sounds of clattering dishes sifting through. "Thanks for dinner." He twitched out a smile, and as the water went off in the kitchen, he took a breath, and shifted a hair closer, and pressed his lips to the corner of Michael's mouth—tentative but firm and very sweet and chaste. And he pulled away as Lucifer reentered the room, and lay back down against the arm of the couch.

Michael licked his lips. He stared at Chuck for a moment, then smiled and looked away.

"I saw that." Lucifer dropped down to the floor again. "And I'm just going to say right now—Not fair. I asked first."

Chuck scoffed. "Excuse me?" He sat somewhat more upright to look down at Lucifer, and pulled a face. "You propositioned me, after backhanding me!" He shook his head. "I'm not obligated to do a damn thing for you, anyway."

"Yeah, yeah." Lucifer tilted his head back, resting against the couch cushion, and met Chuck's eyes. His expression was calm and a little amused and strangely soft. "I'm still jealous." He winked, and returned his attention to the TV. As though on a whim, as a last thought, he muttered, "And I didn't mean to lose my temper, when I hit you."

Chuck snorted, and closed his eyes. "Is that a real apology I detect?"

"Shut up."


	26. I CAN HEAR THE VOICES SAY

(You may have been noticing a bit of a shift in tone lately. There will be some character development before a certain character makes a reappearance and some dramatic things happen. So this chapter is not particularly "action packed," just fyi. But they haven't been lately anyway.)

...

The main thing that Gabriel noticed about Sam was that he sat down frequently. Took little breaks often, even doing the most simple of tasks. When Sam swept his hair from his face, Gabriel watched the stark line of his cheekbones and traced the shadows under his eyes and memorized each detail. He wanted to help. But even with his strange, still rather new, powers... He could only wait, really. Couldn't press a hand to Sam's forehead or snap or even kiss him better, because it was something that wouldn't heal with coaxing from an angel or a god or a monster.

It needed time. And that was all Gabriel could do—wait.

So for the next few days, he made himself unusually helpful.

"Hey, Sammich." He leaned on the edge of one long table in the rather vast library, and it creaked under his weight. Old as hell. Sturdy though. "You hungry? I was um... Well I was gonna make myself lunch, and I thought, you know..." He shrugged. "Big strong tree like you oughta eat more." He smirked.

Sam rolled his eyes. "I'm not a tree." His expression softened, as he looked up from a thick book on runes. "But thank you for the offer. I'd love to eat whatever you're willing to give me, as long as it's not too greasy. I kind of have a stomachache." He settled his chin on one fisted hand, and met Gabe's eyes.

Gabriel grinned at him. "Darn, I was gonna make bacon!" He winked. "No, but in all seriousness... Eggs and toast?" He pushed off from the tabletop and scuffed his shoes along the floor.

Sam shook his head. "No eggs, please." He licked his dry lips and hummed softly under his breath, and still didn't look away from Gabriel. "Do we have any fruit?"

"Only frozen. I'll make you a smoothie with ice and fruit and shit, how's that sound? Scrumptious?"

Sam smiled. Finally, he averted his eyes. "Sounds good." He gazed at the grain of the table. "But if this is just part of your scheme to get into my pants, I'll dump it down your shirt."

Gabriel let out a short bark of laughter, and planted his hands on his hips. "You wound me!" He shook his head, and sent Sam one last broad grin, and backed away with a salute. "But I promise to keep my hands to myself, sweet cheeks." He vanished from the library in a shower of white sparks, then.

Sam rolled his eyes.

Turned out... Gabriel was actually quite skilled with a blender. He took their meager assortment of frozen strawberries, bananas and mangos, and combined them with yogurt, and mixed it all up to be as smooth as possible, and poured it into two stout glass tumblers, and set one in front of Sam with a flourish and a side of dry toast. He sipped from his own glass.

"Thanks..." Sam nibbled on his toast and took a drink. It was pleasant and a little tangy. Cold enough to make him cough, but not in a bad way. He grinned. "I'm surprised you know how to use any kind of appliances, though."

Gabriel stuck his tongue out. "I am actually quite skilled with human technology, I'll have you know." He smirked, and sat on the table with his glass in one hand and the other hand pressed against the wood. "I always thought it was interesting, so I tried to use as many different kinds of machines as I could." He shrugged. "So, I can use a blender, but not a washing machine, and I know how to make toast but I can't figure out how to turn on the shower without scalding myself—speaking of which..." He grimaced. "Could you maybe... show me how that works, later?" He scratched at the back of his neck, a little sheepish.

Sam snorted, and his smile widened. "Sure."

"You're a saint." Gabriel patted Sam's wrist.

"Not so much." Sam shrugged, and closed his eyes as he sipped from his smoothie. "But thanks."

Gabriel let out a soft breath. He leaned over and kissed Sam's forehead, pushing the other man's hair back from his forehead, then slithered off of the table to leave the room. Before he made it more than a few steps, though, Sam's slender fingers locked around his wrist. Gabriel turned, and Sam's face was downturned, with his bangs hanging in front of his face. He looked like a lost little boy. Tugged slightly at Gabriel's arm.

Gabe moved closer to him. Met no resistance. Raised his hands and set them on Sam's shoulders. Still no resistance. He slid his arms around Sam, and pressed his lips to the top of his head, and essentially cradled him, and stroked one hand over the long hair hanging around his neck. Sam's arms latched around his waist.

They remained like that for a very long time. Wordless and embracing each other.

Eventually Sam whispered into Gabriel's shirt, "Sorry. Sorry." He breathed in through his nose harshly. "When I was little and I was sick, Dean would sit next to me on the bed and let me use him as a pillow or a teddy bear or whatever and I just... I feel like _crap_ and I need... I just need hugs," He cleared his throat. "and I can't ask for Dean to do that. He'd laugh, or he'd worry. And I don't want either of those, you know? I just... want someone to hold me and tell me everything's fine and happy and just... Sorry. It's unfair for me to do this when I told you no—I ..." He let out a soft breath and it spread a little spot of warmth against Gabriel's chest. "Sorry."

"Sam," Gabe smoothed both hands back through Sam's hair, and pulled away just a few inches. He settled his palms on the sides of Sam's face and tilted his head back so he could meet his eyes. "Don't apologize for needing touch." His back curved in the yellow light of the library, and he pressed their foreheads together. "Humans have always needed love, and I am made to love, and if I can do anything to keep you thriving or even just _alive_... I want to. Because..." He closed his eyes, though Sam kept his open. "I've done some awful things in my existence, and though I did them for good reasons, that's no excuse, and I want to make it up to you. Even if I can't make it up to anyone else."

Sam tugged Gabriel closer and held him as tight as he could, and squeezed his eyes shut.

"Thank you."

Gabriel just smiled.

...

"Prophet," Lucifer settled his hands on the arm of the couch, on either side of Chuck's head. "Is this Stockholm Syndrome?"

Chuck frowned, and looked up from his book. "What?" His view of Lucifer was upside-down.

Lucifer rolled his eyes, and leaned down further. "I really want to kiss you."

"Oh my God, Lu."

"It's true! It must be Stockholm Syndrome. Why else would I want to kiss a pathetic mud monkey?"

Lucifer focused his eyes cold and blue on Chuck's face, and Chuck looked away, turning his head to the side. His cheek bumped against Lucifer's knuckles. He sighed.

"It's not Stockholm Syndrome." He closed his book with a rustling snap. "You're just an asshole."

Lucifer gave a derisive snort. "And you're a hack."

"Shut your face." Chuck reached up and poked Lucifer on the nose—he felt confident, strangely enough, that the much sturdier man wouldn't hurt him, despite the fact that they usually got along poorly. "I'm just writing what the prophecies say."

Lucifer stared at him, for a long time. Disconcertingly. But... fondly. And also a little annoyed. He shook his head, glancing away. Dropped a fast, awkwardly brusque kiss to Chuck's mouth and then pushed away, and left the room. The stairs creaked in his ascent to the upstairs bedroom. Chuck let himself sag against the couch cushions and stared at the ceiling.

"Ah, shit."


	27. PUT ON YOUR WAR PAINT

(We get a teeny bit of Kev's POV for a sec today. I feel bad for not including him more but there are only so many characters you can focus on before it just gets far too cluttered.)

...

Kevin noted the silence of the bunker. Nothing more than the strange buzz of the ancient light bulbs. Hushed. A slight susurrus of rain against the warded skylights in the ceiling. And other than that... Quiet. Subdued.

He watched Castiel curled in a padded chair in the corner reading. Tapped a pencil to his chin and swept his eyes 'round the room. Sam was crouched on the floor surrounded by dusty books with varicolored covers, head bowed, shoulders sloped, hair covering his face. Beside him, standing, Gabriel held another armful of books, and leaned close with whispers. Dean sat at one of the long wood tables with a bored expression and yet more books.

They were researching a case. Rumors said it was a boo-hag. Gabe thought otherwise, Sam seemed to agree, and Kevin was beginning to sway to their side despite Dean's insistence that it could be nothing else. But really. The arson typically involved was not normal hag behavior in any way. It targeted the homes of hunters, and families with two sons and no other children. All in Lawrence, Kansas. All rather mockingly.

"Seriously. I think it's someone who knows about you guys." Gabriel spoke louder, then. He glanced up at Dean. "These books are useless. It's not a hag." He shoved his stack onto a shelf and snatched the book from Sam's hand. "And I quote, 'A boo-hag typically attacks at night and does nothing more than ride children through the sky, though if the victim struggles they may claim their skin and leave them to suffer.'" He raised his eyebrows. "Creepy as that is, it ain't what we're dealing with, boys. These fires are... random. Middle of the day, midnight, breakfast. Boo-hag's gotta be in her skin my sunrise, so it wouldn't make any sense! Only two male children, second floor only. Your hometown?" He snapped the book shut and dropped it to the floor, planting his hands on his hips. "Sounds suspicious. Someone's trying to tell you they're there. Taunting you."

Sam sighed.

Kevin frowned. "He's right, you know."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Fine. Fine, _maybe_ you're right. So?" He spread his arms.

"I _am_ right, and it's a trap."

With a snort, Dean pushed himself away from the table. "Great. And people are still dying." He raised one finger before Gabriel could speak. "I think a _trap_ is the least of our problems." He crossed his arms. "We need to stop these fires, and we also need to stop your stupid-ass siblings from breaking the planet, by the way, and with Sam out for the count this ain't easy."

"I'm not 'out for the count,' Dean." Sam scowled at his older brother. "I can still do research."

Dean nodded. "Yeah, but you can't _fight_, and Cas is so used to using mojo that he can't fight either. And if Gabriel tried to do anything he'd probably puke blood everywhere and then pass out. And Kevin's a wimp! Where does that leave me?!" He shook his head. "We can't do a goddamn thing, so I might as well just walk into this thing guns blazing. I don't give a _damn _if it's a trap. I wanna save some friggin' lives, even if it gets me blown up."

"Then go save some fucking lives, asshat." Gabriel dropped to the ground beside Sam. He glared at Dean. "But don't come crying to me when you get your face blown off by a demon."

Dean glowered, with his jaw clenched tight, and rolled his eyes. He threw himself back into the chair.

"That what you think? Demons?"

Gabriel raised one eyebrow smoothly. "When is it ever _not_ demons? You boys are fucking magnets for Hell-based activity, and all the demons hate your guts."

Dean pursed his lips—and sure he always made fun of Sam's "bitchface" but he sported a pretty spectacular one himself. He shook his head and leaned back in his chair and glared at the ceiling. High up and old-fashioned. Kinda ugly, to be honest. He sighed.

"Fine, just... Stop bein' an a-hole for like five seconds and help us out here, man."

Gabriel let out a reluctant sigh, and nodded. "Fine." He tapped his fingers against his knee. "It's definitely a demon?" He smiled, and it was an unpleasant smile.

"But how?" Sam frowned, with his forehead crinkling adorably as his eyebrows lifted. "How do you know, I mean?" He held a book between his hands.

Gabriel shrugged. "Like I said, you guys attract them like flies to honey, and... lately I've just been getting this bad feeling you know? A strong demon's presence." He stared at Sam for a few seconds, before turning to glance at Dean. "A _very_ strong demon's presence... Like... Fallen angel levels of demon."

"Abaddon?"

Dean's mouth twisted. "We made a deal with her, though."

"Whoa, hang on there, bucko—you made a deal with a Knight?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "Not that kind of deal."

"Oh." Gabriel frowned. "Well, I don't think she'll feel obligated to hold up her end. You didn't kiss her, did you? And if you didn't kiss her or sign a contract or anything, well... It's unofficial. She's not a crossroads demon, anyway. She's a big bad. Not some chick who makes pinky promises."

Dean blinked. "Are you fucking serious?"

"As death."

Dean let out a hissed curse and a groan.

"Sorry, kid."

Gabriel raised his eyebrows, with a thin-lipped grimace in place, and tugged Sam to his feet. He leaned up on tiptoe to whisper in Sam's ear, nodding toward the hall. Sam shrugged. But he followed behind Gabriel when prodded, into the stretch of narrowness that branched off into bedrooms. For the second time and probably not the last, they found themselves in Sam's bedroom.

Sam sat on his bed. His little photograph of Jessica leaned against the lamp on his bedside table. He took it between his slender fingers and turned it around. On the back, smeared black ink read "Halloween, 2005." It was her in that nurse costume with a big smile. He held it out to Gabriel, who took it with a curious sound.

"Who's this?"

Sam sort of smiled, and sort of didn't. A very gentle expression, and a sad one. "Someone I loved, who died." He shrugged. "Like a ton of other people I've loved." He took the photo back, and looked at it for a moment. Then set it on his bedside table once more. He shrugged.

"Yeah?" Gabriel looked down at Sam. He sat down beside him on the bed, with a soft sigh.

They were silent, together. For a very long time. At least twenty minutes sitting with no noise but the soft tick of the clock. Until Gabriel shifted, sliding his hands behind him to lean back somewhat, and cleared his throat, and said, "I'm sorry." He stared at the opposite wall.

"For what?" Sam shifted where he sat. Moved to meet Gabe's eyes, with a tilt of his head that sent his bangs into his face. "Being an asshole?" He grinned, and pushed his hair back from his forehead.

Gabriel let out a surprised snort.

"Well," He scratched the back of his neck and couldn't help but smile. "Yeah, I guess there's that. But just..."

He shrugged.

"For everything, Sam."

He laughed quietly. "I'm sorry for everything."

Sam's easy expression dropped to something more somber. He nodded, with no words, and stared at Gabriel. His eyes were very green in the light of the bedroom. "Yeah?" He pulled a face. "I might forgive you, someday." He met Gabe's eyes.

Gabriel looked away, and fiddled with his fingertips—rougher around the edges than they used to be. Finally, he looked back up at Sam, and smiled. It was the most truthful smile Sam had seen him wear. Not teasing, not angry, not skeevy, not silly. Just a very slow, small smile that made his dimples shadow slightly, and brought out the warm color in his eyes.

"You sure you don't wanna make out?" Gabriel raised one eyebrow, and his smile morphed into a leer, as he looked Sam up and down.

Sam pretended to think for a minute, then said, "Nah."

Gabriel laughed. "Worth a try." He seemed to remember something, suddenly, and reached into the back pocket of his jeans. He pulled out a rather rumpled square envelope, and flattened it against his knee. "I want you to take this," He held it out to Sam. "And I don't _ever_ want you to open it. Unless I die, or disappear, or something." He grinned wider. "Okay?"

"Okay, I guess." Sam took the envelope in his hands. The paper was light blue. He flipped it around, and found no markings or indications as to what it was. Too thick to see through, to find out what it might hold, as well. "What the hell is it?"

Gabriel wiggled his eyebrows. "Dirty sonnets and cocaine."

Sam rolled his eyes. But he placed the envelope in the drawer of his nightstand, and smiled at Gabriel.

Gabriel beamed at him.

...

The electricity had gone out. Again. But the weather remained fairly mild—just a light drizzle and breeze. Chuck still shivered, though, in his thin bathrobe and threadbare pajamas. He drew the blanket around himself, reading in bed. His feet stuck out from the bottom—still sensitive and red. Michael lay beside him, plugged into his iPhone as always, and Lucifer stood at the window with a thoughtful expression on his face as he watched the trees shiver in the evening air.

The harsh glow from Chuck's booklight sent shadows across his face, and Michael's as well. Pushed black lines up the wall in stark contrast to the watery gray light from outside.

Lucifer pressed his palm against the windowpane, and his skin came away damp. He looked down at his fingertips. Cold. A sensation different from his own chill burn—different from his cool skin as a human as well. Something wetter and stranger. He wiped his hand on his flannel pants (blue and gray plaid) and approached the bed.

"If you touch me with your clammy hand I'll poke you in the eye." Chuck shifted closer to Michael, situating himself more in the center of the bed so Lucifer could climb in.

Lucifer rolled his eyes. "I'm too tired to be an asshole today." He pulled the covers up over his face, and Chuck grumbled and tugged them back a little bit. Lucifer glared at him. After a brief scuffle, they ended up more comfortably situated, both warm. Michael ignored them, for the most part.

It was just one of those days.

Cold outside, cozy inside despite the lack of heat or electricity.

Slow and muffled.

Chuck fell asleep with his book on his chest. Michael followed soon after, setting his phone on the bedside table. Lucifer watched them both, face sober, for almost an hour before eventually succumbing to unconsciousness as well.

He woke to a soft sound, with his face smashed up against Chuck's narrow shoulder. Chuck trembled. Lucifer sat up, and looked at the smaller man—sweating and shaking and whimpering in his sleep, eyelids fluttering fitfully. Lucifer frowned. He pressed one hand to Chuck's forehead. Normal temperature, for the most part.

"Wake up, moron." Lucifer shook Chuck's arm. Michael stirred on Chuck's other side, and cracked an eye open, worried. Again, Lucifer hissed, "Wake up."

Chuck's breathing stuttered, and he flinched before blinking into consciousness with a whine. He seemed to stare at nothing for a moment, then pulled in a deep gasp of air, eyes widening. He sat up. Rubbed at his head, covered his eyes—tears fell down his cheeks. "Shit," He pressed a palm flat against his mouth, with shoulders somewhat hunched.

"Chuck," On Chuck's opposite side, Michael frowned from where he lay. "Are you alright?" He reached a hand out to wrap his fingers around Chuck's wrist, comfortingly. Lucifer held an arm around Chuck's back.

Chuck shook his head. "I'm fine. Fine. Bad vision is all." He gave Michael a weak smile, and leaned into Lucifer's hold. He even went so far as to close his eyes and let his head fall against Lucifer's shoulder while Michael stroked the inside of his forearm. "Really bad vision."

"What kind of bad?" Lucifer fastened his hand around Chuck's waist, for once not in the mood to tease or prod or goad.

"All kinds of bad." A nervous giggle bubbled up from Chuck's throat. "I've got a migraine, and I'm all sweaty and gross, for one thing. And the... the vision itself..." He wiped his eyes. "I—I don't... really wanna talk about it, you know?"

Michael's mouth curved down at the edges, and he sat up to help support Chuck. "Was it violent?"

Chuck snorted. "Not any more than normal," he whispered. "Just... _sad_." He looked down at his still shivering hands.

"Humans." Lucifer spat the word, almost. Like he was disgusted. "So emotional."

Chuck rolled his rather damp eyes, and elbowed Lucifer's ribcage. "I'm pretty sure you cried watching _Captain America_, jerk."

Lucifer narrowed his eyes, but only scoffed and withdrew his hand from Chuck's waist, and lay back down with an annoyed expression and tightly crossed arms. Eventually, Chuck followed suit. Michael leaned close and kissed both his and Lucifer's foreheads—"You are fucking ridiculous, brother."—before laying down as well.

The sun rose on a small, perhaps neurotic man tangled in the embrace of two fallen Archangels, snug and sad but somehow not unhappy.

...

Abaddon delighted in the use of technology. She tilted the tablet in her hands, and grinned at the video feed she received. The front entrance of the Men of Letters' old headquarters. The Batcave, as Dean called it. A nickname she thoroughly approved of. She pushed her curls—all fiery and smooth—from her face, watching a sparrow hop along the railing of their front door, and leaned back in her stool.

She had dealt with Crowley—the insufferable maggot—and now... Well, she wanted to have some _fun_. Real fun. Demonic fun, with the deaths of innocents and all that jazz.

She wanted to destroy some things. Some people. Some souls.

She mapped out her plan in her head, sitting in a bloodied diner seat with her iPad in front of her. Plotted out what might best work. Who she ought to kill, who she ought to leave, and who she ought to tease... Best to beat some sense into those Winchester boys. They looked so delicious with blood and bruises on their faces after all—Abaddon felt sure she'd never seen anyone wear a black eye more prettily than Sam Winchester, and red gashes brought out the green in Dean's eyes.

She hummed.

Time to go.


	28. PLAYED ALL THE FOOLS

Chuck let his fingers linger, shivering slightly, over the keyboard while he stared at the too-bright screen of his laptop. Susan wove her way between his legs in a figure-eight formation, with a loud purr vibrating her sides. He sighed and poured some whiskey into his bottled coffee, and gulped down a mouthful in the dim room. A candle flickered at the edge of the table. Still no power. But enough battery life to keep his computer going for maybe an hour. He updated his online gospel with one chapter and an apology saying, "You might not hear from me for a while. My town's power is out and my computer's dying."

He leaned back in his chair. Another swig of too-sweet, foully spiked coffee. Closed his eyes. They burned far too hot behind his eyelids and his throat felt constricted. Didn't want to cry but... it was hard not to. Hard not to. But he used Lucifer's disdain and resentment as a way to keep himself dry-eyed. Rubbed at his temple where a thick migraine had started up.

Susan leapt into his lap. She pushed her wet nose against his hand, and then stretched up to nuzzle at his chin, and licked at him with her scratchy tongue. He let his fingers card through her soft fur. He wrapped his arms around her little kitty body and felt her purring and pressed his face into her warm neck. She smelled like fish and cat litter but he didn't really mind. She mewled.

The front door opened with a shushing noise. A brief bar of sunlight followed Michael and Lucifer into the hallway before Lucifer closed the door again and bolted it behind him. He carried a cooler which looked heavier than it ought to be and several grocery bags of canned food. His brother stood behind him with two massive jugs of purified water and a case of Starbucks bottled coffee. Supplies for their lack of electricity. The water still ran... but Chuck had done some researching and checked the news for his town, and they suggested using only boiled or bottled water because although the water still worked, the range of the power outage made it likely that the water wouldn't be particularly potable.

Chuck waved at his fallen angels, and Lucifer rolled his eyes. Mike nodded toward him on his way to the kitchen.

"Lot of idiots were at the store." Lucifer dropped the jugs to the ground with a thud. He shoved the coffee onto the table, and helped Michael out with the cans, while Mike opened the cooler and pulled out a large bag of ice. He opened the refrigerator and filled the cooler in alternating layers of food and ice. They'd have to throw out anything big, but luckily Chuck mostly had only small things like mustard and cheese, which would keep fairly well in the cooler. Frozen items were good for another 48 hours, with how full his freezer was. Hopefully the power would return first, though. He liked his toaster waffles and he didn't want to have to throw out four boxes of them. Ice cream too. which made him think.

"Yeah?" Chuck stood, pulling his robe tight around him and dislodging Susan. He went to the refrigerator and opened the freezer door and pulled out his pint of tiramisu ice cream. He snatched a bottle of rum from his cupboard, and a tall glass, and set about making himself a float. Because why the hell not? "I guess the power's out all over." He jabbed at his ice cream with a tea spoon. "Everyone needs supplies."

Lucifer snorted. "Well, I just hope they don't run out of ice." He shoved the last of the cans into the pantry, except for one of those huge family-sized cans of SpaghettiO's, and thunked it down on the counter. Opened it, poured it into a few small bowls. Slid one to Chuck and left to sit in the living room on the couch.

Chuck watched him staring out the window, and frowned down at his cold noodles and colder float. Dew formed on the side of his glass and slid down, and puddled on the counter. He sipped from the edge—slightly overflowing—before he grabbed his things in hand and returned to the desk in his living room and set his meal down. Then he abandoned the food and went to the couch, and sat beside Lucifer. It would have been too close for comfort, in the past, but now... He had no such thing as privacy anyway, and the sturdiness of Lucifer's shoulder comforted him more than it ought to have.

Funny how that happened.

"Sorry you're stuck with me."

Lucifer's forehead wrinkled as he frowned. "Excuse me?" He turned his head to look at Chuck, baffled. His eyes caught the yellowy light from the late afternoon sun through the window, and went the color of dried blue pansies.

Chuck shrugged. "I just mean... You used to be... you know... Powerful. And now you're kinda stuck with this pathetic little prophet in a town without any power..." His mouth twisted, and he looked down at his crisscrossed fingers.

With an amused yet annoyed sigh, Lucifer raised one hand to the back of Chuck's neck, ignoring his SpaghettiO's, and tugged Chuck closer so he could stare him straight in the eye and say, "I'd rather be here with my brother and a puny prophet than anywhere else. I doubt anyone else would help us, the way you have." His eyes flicked down to Chuck's mouth, and he smirked.

Before Chuck had a chance to completely process anything, Lucifer kissed him. Cold lips and no elegance and the slight smell of tomatoes, and something fierce underlying it all. Different from, yet very similar to, the first time he had kissed him. Chuck couldn't help but lean into it—scrabbled one hand against the fabric of Lucifer's shirt, let the other flutter uselessly at his side, tilted his head for a better angle. Lucifer hummed his approval.

A cough sounded from behind them, and Chuck jumped back. His face went scarlet. Michael stood behind the couch, looking at them with an amused expression.

Lucifer grinned. "Care to join us, brother?"

"What?!" Chuck blushed even darker, if that was possible. "I—I—_what?!_"

Michael laughed softly, and shook his head. "As... _tempting_... as that is... I think, perhaps, I will sit this out..." His eyes flickered briefly to Chuck's face. "I doubt Chuck would appreciate such a sudden turn of events in his romantic life."

"Hey, I never said it was _romantic_." Lucifer shrugged. Chuck thwacked him on the shoulder with a partially-curled fist. Crossed his arms and stared down at the floor while Lucifer laughed and ruffled his hair, and leaned close to whisper in his ear, "What, you want flowers and chocolate? 'Cause I don't do that, Prophet." He mouthed at Chuck's jawline.

Chuck shuddered, with a quiet intake of breath. "Um—" He let his eyes close, and sagged back against the couch, with his head tilted back so Lucifer could get at his throat. "Um, are we gonna—? Are we...?" He bit his lip.

"What, are you shy?" Lucifer's teeth grazed Chuck's collarbone.

Chuck shook his head. And stilled. "Well, kind of—but I mean—I..." His eyes flickered open and he glanced up at Michael. "Your brother is kind of... right there."

Lucifer laughed and settled himself on Chuck's lap, effectively pinning him to the couch. "Does it bother you?" He slid his arms around Chuck's shoulders and nipped at his ear. "Having him watch?" His voice was low and quiet and taunting. He slid one hand down Chuck's arm, then up the front of his shirt.

"Um."

Lucifer kissed him again, but filthier. Tongue and teeth and heat. Chuck whined in the back of his throat.

Michael shook his head and claimed the melting rum float and noodles from Chuck's desk, and disappeared into the darkening kitchen with them. Dishes clinked, though the water didn't run. The cooler made a muffled sound when its lid closed, and Chuck was distracted from it all by the mouth—in turns hot and cold—against the skin of his neck. The back door clacked at the same time Lucifer's icy fingers brushed down Chuck's side and Chuck gasped.

"Go—go get him." Chuck shoved at Lucifer, rather ineffectively, flushed and wide-eyed.

Lucifer grinned wide and predatory. "Gladly."

He was on his feet and gone in a few seconds, leaving Chuck in shadows on the couch. Chuck stood, knees weak, and smoothed his palms along his jeans. The kitchen door creaked again and the two fallen angels reentered the living room. Michael wore a quizzical expression and Lucifer just grinned.

"Something you want to say, Prophet?"

Chuck twisted the hem of his shirt between his fingers and stared at the ground. "I—I've never...?" He chewed on his lip.

"Neither had brother dearest." Lucifer chuckled. "We can... take it slow." He approached Chuck on bare feet, slow and calm. Ran one rough palm up the side of Chuck's face to tangle his fingers in his messy hair. Tugged enough to make Chuck squeak. "I promise." His eyes were dark. Then he stepped back and gestured to Michael. "Kiss him." He pushed away from Chuck and headed toward the stairs. "Then bring him to the bedroom. I'm gonna teach you two a thing or two about having fun."

Chuck stood pink-faced in the living room, and Michael cleared his throat. Shuffled closer. Finally reached up a tentative hand to Chuck's chin. "I've never really..."

Chuck steeled himself and tugged Michael close so their lips met and their noses bumped awkwardly, so Michael had to hunch. He slid his arms around Michael's shoulders. Michael's hands settled on his waist.

"I'm _waiting_!"

Chuck flinched, and Michael stood rather dazed. They stared at each other for a few seconds. Chuck smiled, then, and looked down at their feet, and said, "Shall we...?"

Michael nodded, and let Chuck pull him to the staircase.

...

"Oh, honey..." Abaddon's red nails click-clacked against the metal studs on her leather belt. "Good job." She tossed her curls over one shoulder and shoved the weak young demon aside with a thought, and made her way to the other end of the abandoned warehouse. Its ceiling reached so high it couldn't be seen, and only the barest pale light stretched along the concrete floor, and the doors hung wide and gaping, and nothing more than a single mice and a great deal of dust populated the space.

Her shoes scraped along the floor. She rubbed her hands together and pursed her lips.

"Mistress—that is..." Her underling fidgeted. "What exactly is your plan for this space?" He eyes flashed black.

Abaddon smirked. "It's my own little rat-trap." She snapped her fingers, and the air distorted briefly before settling back to normal. The place was now perfectly clean. "And I need you to send a little... message... to those Winchester boys."

"Yes. What message?" The demon flinched away from her gaze.

She smiled, sweetly. "Go tell them..." He inspected her nails. "Tell them to meet me here, or I'll blow up the entire town."

"Yes, ma'am."


	29. THE THUNDER OF GUNS TORE ME APART

(Warning for major character death.)

...

"What?" Dean snapped his phone shut. "Shit. Shit, shit, fuck." He ran his fingers back through his short hair, and grimaced. "Fuck."

Sam frowned where he sat at the table, and looked up with a questioning sound. "What is it?" At his elbow, Gabriel continued to flip through a magazine, but clearly had his attention focused outward.

Dean closed his eyes. "She's gonna blow it up."

"Blow... what up?" Sam's mouth twisted.

Dean gritted his teeth, and glared at the ceiling. "This town, Sammy. The entire town and everyone in it." He spun around, and approached Cas, who sat with crossed legs on the floor in front of a bookcase. He sat down beside him. "She's gonna kill everyone if we don't meet her at some abandoned warehouse." He breathed out another curse.

"Crap." Sam leaned back in his chair. At that point, Gabriel looked up from his mag and glanced between them all. "All of us?"

Dean nodded, throat bobbing as he swallowed a mouthful of spit. "Me and you, little brother. Me and you." He closed his eyes.

"Well..." Sam stroked one finger along the yellowed paper of his book. "I guess we'll have to go. I feel better than I did a few days ago... I think I can handle it..."

"I'm coming with you."

Sam and Dean both looked at Gabriel. "What?"

"I am coming with you and if you try to stop me I'll turn you both into frogs."

Sam rolled his eyes and leaned his elbows against the tabletop, and pressed his face into his hands. "Fine." He pushed his hair back out of his eyes. "Your powers should be an advantage, anyway."

Gabriel raised his eyebrows smugly.

...

Chuck looked down at his dead computer. He frowned. Susan butted at his calf with a meow, and he reached down to scratch her ears. "Hey, baby." He scooped her up into his arms. "You hungry?" She licked his bare chest with a mewl and he laughed, and walked into the dark kitchen with a flashlight in his free hand. He set it on the table, and went about filling her bowls. The moonlight streaming through the window made everything stark black and white.

Susan purred, as Chuck crouched down beside her and toyed with the tip of her tail while she ate. He shivered, wearing only pajama pants. He frowned. Stroked her ears. "Susie..." He rubbed his index finger down the middle of her skull. "I wish I wasn't a prophet."

Susan tilted her head and gave him a curious meow.

"Just... It's just..." He sighed. "He's gonna... I just don't want to see those sad things, you know...?"

She blinked at him with her mismatched eyes. "Mrrrow."

"God, I'm talking to a cat." Chuck buried his face in his hands. Susan sniffed at his knuckles, and scraped her tongue against his skin. He uncovered his face. Ran one hand down her back and kissed her wet nose. He laughed at the tickle of her whiskers.

The stairs creaked, and Chuck straightened up where he sat. Eventually, Lucifer stepped into the kitchen. His eyes glittered in the beam of the flashlight, and parts of his body were shadowed while others were highlighted, and his shirt rustled when he crossed his arms. Chuck smiled up at him, but didn't meet his eyes. Lucifer leaned against the doorway.

"You look like an old banana."

Chuck made a strange face. "Excuse me?"

"You're more bruise than skin." Lucifer grinned, and raised his eyebrows.

Chuck blushed. "And whose fault is that?" He reached up and scratched at one of many hickies on his neck. Stared at the tiling of the kitchen floor, while Susan rubbed against his bare side and purred. "You're overzealous." He chewed on his lip.

"Am I?" Lucifer crouched down in front of Chuck and caught his chin with his fingertips, to tilt his head back so their eyes met. "Because... You marked my brother up pretty good... And he contributed quite a lot as well." He moved closer, into Chuck's airspace. "And..." Their noses brushed, and Chuck felt his heart rate kick up as Lucifer continued to speak in a low voice. "You're rougher than I am, Mr. Bruising-Grip."

Chuck glanced at the reddish marks on Lucifer's bicep, and flushed darker.

Lucifer laughed.

...

"This is it."

The Impala rolled to a stop as Dean cut her engine. Gravel crackled under her tires, and a few drops of rain trickled down her sides. Dean hopped out onto the cracked road. Almost tripped over a large pothole directly by Baby's front wheel. On the other side, Sam looked at the abandoned warehouse. It loomed in the darkness, with one flickering lamp illuminating the front. Soft orange-y light spilled from a slightly open doorway.

Dean twirled his angel blade and gripped it tight, tip pointed to the ground. Sam's hand drifted to where his knife was sheathed. Gabriel got out of the car the human way, to preserve his energy, though sparks flew when he touched the metal frame of the Impala's door. He didn't even flinch. Only stared at the building before them, and shut his door.

The large doors in the front of the warehouse swung open with a deep groan of rusty metal. A fan of light—from a wall of fire in the far end of the building—fell out over them. Abaddon stood with her hands on her hips, swathed in black, and smiled.

"Well hello there, boys." She licked her lips (red like a baby's blood). "Fancy meeting you here."

Dean took a step forward, glowering. "Stuff it, bitch." He clutched his weapon. "We're here to kick your ass for good."

"Oh?" She gave him a leisurely blink. "I see." Waved her hand, nonchalant and quick.

Dean hit the ground with a grunt.

"Dean!" Sam lunged forward, either to help his brother or stab Abaddon, but he found himself flung into the warehouse with a scrape of gravel and metal on concrete. He let out a low, wounded noise.

It was then that Abaddon turned her attention to Gabriel. "Do I know you?"

"We must have passed each other on the street." Gabriel let his eyes flicker briefly to where Sam lay, and steeled himself. "Or maybe I'm just well-known." He winked, and snapped his fingers. The lone lamp overhead shattered with a pop, and showered glass down on Abaddon, who only laughed and brushed the stuff away.

She echoed his motion with slender fingers, red nails flashing black in the moonlight. Before Gabriel could move, he felt gravel dig into his knees and a thick pressure against his shoulders that urged him down. He resisted better than Dean, but still couldn't help bowing under the weight. He growled, and the ground buckled, upsetting Abaddon so she almost fell. It gave him enough of an opening to warp the air around him and flutter into being directly in front of the Queen of Hell.

She appeared surprised for a split second before her hand shot out—presumably to grab his throat, but he dodged so she grabbed only a fistful of air, and slammed a palmful of lightning against her abdomen. She let out a snarl as she doubled over, only to wrap her fingers like a vise around Gabriel's wrist and jam her knee up against his elbow so it let out a sickening crack.

"Fuck!" Gabriel jerked back. His face twisted in pain, and he clutched his arm with concentration. Streams of electricity knit across it and he shook out his entire arm. Clenched his teeth together tight when his arm snapped back into place.

Abaddon raised one perfect eyebrow. "Not bad..." She backed into the warehouse. Flicked her hand. Dean was thrown in behind her, and both his and Sam's backs slammed into a stack of wooden boxes. Luckily they were empty, but they still did damage as they fell around the now-unconscious brothers. Abaddon stopped in the center of the broad concrete room. "Try this, though."

She raised both arms in a smooth movement and the ground under Gabriel's feet buckled, sending him flying forward. He caught his fall with his palms flat against the ground and broken glass from the burst lamp dug into his skin, and his still-tender elbow protested. He snarled and lurched to his feet. Sent the glass shards from his palms with a burst of hot energy that sealed the wounds in a half second. He swung his arm like he planned to throw a baseball, but on the release sent an orb of electricity that hit Abaddon square in the face.

She shrieked and doubled over, but recovered to quickly for Gabriel's liking and used her telekinesis to send several boxes flying toward him. He blew them up before they could hit him, but missed the last one. It clipped his shoulder, and he grunted. Dropped to his knees and pressed his palms flat against the concrete.

Sparks and thin red lightning sprouted from his hands and followed a growing crack in the floor, and burst up in a spear of cement and electricity. It caught Abaddon's side, tearing a sizeable wound into her abdomen so that blood splashed to the ground and she all but roared in fury and pain. Pressed her hand against her wound while it smoked. Bared her teeth. Her eyes went jet black and she raised her free hand and made a grabbing motion with all her fingers together, and twisted.

Gabriel let out a strangled shout, and spit out a mouthful of blood as a searing pang ripped through his insides. Like acid. He heaved in a sharp breath through his nose and almost stumbled. He swallowed the rest of the blood bubbling up his throat and clapped his hands together. A tongue of electric fire engulfed him and shot out to wrap around Abaddon like a vine. She tore it as easily as tissue paper and stalked toward Gabriel.

He folded space around him and disappeared, to reappear beside Dean's prone form. He tugged the angel blade away from Dean, who stirred. Gabriel dragged Dean to his feet before he even gained full consciousness, and hissed, "Get your ass out of here, Winchester." He shoved, and Dean stumbled toward the entrance.

To distract Abaddon, Gabriel snapped his fingers, and every single window and light in the warehouse exploded in a flash of red and blue-white light. She whirled around, to face him—and Dean made it outside.

Gabriel twirled his new blade in hand and grinned. His tattoos glowed in the blackness, scarlet and sinister. The blade flashed, and he threw it. It sliced a hole in Abaddon's leather jacket, but hit nothing vital before burying itself in the concrete wall. Gabriel grimaced.

He pulled his hand back and gathered the concentration to retrieve the weapon.

It appeared in his hand just before Abaddon pounced on him. He stabbed, and she dodged, and they landed on the ground in a heap of flailing limbs and fierce snarls.

Gabriel heard Sam shout his name.

Abaddon used his moment of distraction to disarm Gabriel and roll him onto his back.

Gabriel gasped, and looked down at the silver blade embedded hilt-deep just below his heart.

Sam shouted his name louder this time.

He dug his fingers into Abaddon's arms, channeling all of his strength into holding her in place. "Go." A bright, ruddy light spilled from his chest with the blood staining his shirt. He let his head fall back, craning to see Sam's dark form in the shadows cast by his wound. "Sam, go." His voice came out hoarse.

"No, Gabriel, no—"

"Go, Sam!" The intensity of Gabriel's shout made the building shake, and outside lightning flashed in the sky. Thunder rumbled directly overhead. Light streamed from Gabriel's mouth and eyes. Sam hesitated, clearly wanting to help. He made to move forward.

"GET OUT NOW!"

Sam flinched when dust rained down from the ceiling.

Lightning arced around Gabriel and Abaddon's shapes, and Abaddon stayed frozen where Gabriel held her, shock on her face and blood dripping from her nose. Gabriel looked as though fire burned just under his skin. The lightning licked up toward the roof in growing tongues, longer and brighter and hotter.

Sam paused.

Gabriel could barely speak, with the heat in his veins, but he managed to grate out a whispered, "Sam, please..." Tears built at the edges of his eyes but evaporated before they could fall down the side of his face. The air distorted around him and his captive. He shook.

Sam ran.

As he left the building, a massive streak of lightning split the sky, followed immediately by the loudest peal of thunder he'd ever heard. The gravel on the road danced under his feet and the Impala's windows rattled where she sat waiting with Dean behind the wheel. Sam threw himself into the car and shouted, "Drive!"

Inside, Gabriel shuddered, with a soft noise of pain in the back of his throat. The angel blade glowed cherry-red where it jutted from his body, and the concrete around him cracked from the heat. Abaddon's clothes caught alight, and Gabriel's burned away.

Abaddon screamed.

As the Impala peeled away, Sam glanced out the back window. He heard Abaddon's shriek, and saw a building bright white-red light with streaks of blue filling the building behind them. They drew further away, engine roaring, and the light grew brighter. The sky had become a nest of electricity and black clouds, and static screeched from the car's radio. The ground rumbled and the sky thundered, and Dean leaned all of his weight against the gas pedal.

A huge fork of lightning split from its fellows and struck the warehouse.

The building collapsed as the lightning reached out into the air.

The light suddenly retracted, as Sam's throat constricted.

It was dark.

And then, when the remnants of the building were no longer visible, Sam saw a blinding flash of light fan out. It was bright enough and reached far enough to illuminate the interior of the car brighter than day, and dragged a distortion of air behind it. Trees flattened, debris filled the air, the road buckled.

Dean swerved off the asphalt just as the massive sound of thunder and violence reached them.

The car's nose crunched against the wide tree they hit. Pine needles filled the air outside. Sam tore his seatbelt off and ducked down into the footwell, burying his face in his arm and squeezing his eyes shut as the rear window burst and showered him with glass.

The wind screamed and rocks and gravel clattered against the ground with a continual rumble.

Eventually the world stopped shuddering, and Sam lifted his head. Slivers of glass fell from his shoulders to the floor of the Impala. In the front seat, Dean groaned. Sam felt something wet on his lip, and reached up to wipe at his face. Bloody nose. His ears rang slightly. His throat was sore too, and he felt light-headed and fuzzy.

Dean swore. Every window in his Baby had blown out. He shook glass from his hair and kicked the door open. Stumbled out of the car. The road was practically destroyed for another hundred feet.

Sam managed to shove his own door open and fell to the ground. Blood dripped from his ears as well, and his teeth felt loose in his head. Dean opened his mouth, but Sam couldn't hear him speak. Dean shook his head like a confused dog—he couldn't hear himself either. But he wobbled over and helped Sam to his feet, sliding an arm around his waist to help support him. They turned to face the direction they had come from.

Smoke billowed into the suddenly clear sky.

The Milky Way was visible.

When Sam could finally hear again, it made no difference.

Everything was dead silent. The only sound? Sam and Dean's mutual breathing. No birds, no squirrels, no cars. Nothing.

Many trees stood crooked. Further leaning the farther they got, until Sam just couldn't see them anymore.

He swallowed.

Realized tears ran down his cheeks. He raised one shaking hand to wipe at his face, smearing blood and saltwater across his skin.

Sam swore.

Then bellowed, "_FUCK_" at the top of his lungs and kicked the Impala's rear tire with a wordless shout.

Dean watched him with a sympathetic expression.

The moon shone bright.

...

(One more chapter just to wrap things up after this. I'm so sorry.)


	30. AND THIS OLD WORLD IS A NEW WORLD

Lucifer dropped to his knees with a grunt. He pulled in a sharp breath, clutching at his head with a hiss. Bowed his shoulders, and clutched at the carpet. Across the room, Michael slid down the wall with a strange noise like a wail and a whimper but nothing like either.

Chuck stared at them, panicking. Susan yowled, and ran from the room. He whirled to look after her.

"Chuck!" Michael snapped his eyes to Chuck. They glowed blue. "Close your eyes!"

Chuck let out a curse and dropped to the floor to shield himself, with his eyes squeezed shut as a high-pitched droning noise filled the air and sent the windows and the dishes rattling. If the power had been on, the lights would have flickered.

As it was, a sudden burst of energy filled the air and set his teeth on edge, and every appliance in the house whirred, buzzed, flickered and roared on for a split second in a huge burst of light that shattered the windows and the coffeepot and the cups and jars and everything made of glass.

The shrill electric squeal ceased.

Chuck raised his head.

Lucifer and Michael stood, and their demeanor had changed completely. They loomed. Exuded a strong sense of power that had not been existent before. They looked amazed, and stared around them. Tears wet Lucifer's face, and Michael grinned.

"Gabriel is dead."

Michael's expression broke. "His death...?"

"Reversed the spell Chuck told us about. The one Metatron cast." Lucifer made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat. "Massive surge of that kind of energy—it smashed the Gates and returned power to every angel still living." He shook his head, and wiped his eyes. Reached down to pull Chuck to his feet with no effort. Pressed two fingers to Chuck's forehead, and Chuck felt refreshed. The blood from his ears served as the only evidence that he'd sustained damage from the sudden surge of Grace. Lucifer turned away from him then, and waved both hands. The lights shivered on, and the TV as well, while the broken windows knit back together to be whole once more.

"...wings." Chuck swallowed, his mouth dry.

Lucifer turned to him with a frown. "What...?"

"You—" Chuck gestured lamely. "You have... four wings. And a halo."

Both Lucifer's and Michael's eyes widened. Lucifer drew closer to Chuck and clasped his shoulders in a crushing grip. "You can see them?" He met Chuck's eyes.

In the background, an emergency news broadcast panicked about a freak explosion just outside of Lebanon, Kansas.

Chuck licked his lips, and reached one tentative hand up. He bypassed the gentle disc of light behind Lucifer's head and instead extended his fingers toward the translucent feathers fanning out from Lucifer's back. Lucifer's gaze followed his hand, and he watched Chuck press his palm flat against the arch of his left wing.

To Chuck, touching Lucifer's wing was like... Like dipping his hand into a strong current of water. Like turning a hose on high and pressing it against your palm. It was soft, cool, alien... Almost intangible. Looked somewhat like water too. Or glass. When Lucifer opened his wings to their full capacity they spanned the entire living room, and the streetlights outside streamed through them and shot shadows onto the walls and floor like the impression of a water bottle on the sidewalk on a hot summer day. He held his breath, as he stroked his fingers through barely visible feathers.

Lucifer held still.

"Wow..." Chuck reluctantly pulled his hand away. He glanced at Michael, who stood much closer than he had before. The brothers' wings fazed through each other, and other objects. Incorporeal. And yet when he touched them, he felt them. He reached out to Michael's nearest wing, briefly. It was much warmer than Lucifer's but just as soft and pressurized. He pulled his hands away and folded them in front of his chest, and leaned toward Michael. Lucifer slid his arm around Chuck's shoulder and tugged his brother closer and they stood in a huddle in the middle of the room, and the angels wrapped their wings around all three like a cocoon of rushing water.

Susan cowered in the corner, watching them as if they might explode.

When nothing happened, she slunk closer, and curled herself around Chuck's ankle with a purr.

...

Castiel held trembling hands to his face. He flicked his tongue out to wet his dry lips, and tasted the salt of his tears, and wrapped his wings about himself with an unnecessary breath. Kevin stared at him. The boy couldn't see Castiel's wings nor halo nor Grace, but he could see him crying and he could see the shift in demeanor. Could see the power in Castiel's eyes.

Castiel disappeared, and Kevin yelped.

Castiel reappeared less than a foot behind Dean, having tracked their connection. Dean turned to him, and Castiel pressed a palm to his forehead. Dean blinked. Looked down at himself. Felt at his face.

"Cas—you..." He broke out into a broad grin. "You got your mojo back."

"Yes." Castiel turned away from Dean. He approached Sam, who knelt near the rear of the Impala, and crouched beside him. He said nothing, but pushed his palm against the back of Sam's head and kissed his temple. As Sam healed, Castiel finally whispered, "I'm sorry."

Then he drew his fingers along the side of the Impala, and she straightened herself out with the creak of metal and the tinkle of glass returning to where it belonged. He slid into the backseat. Dean coaxed his little brother to his feet, and maneuvered him into the passenger seat, patting his damp cheek but saying nothing.

He climbed into the passenger seat. Started the engine, and she growled like new.

Sam watched the sun rise, feeling dazed and wrung out and hollow. He sniffled, and wiped his eyes and nose on his sleeve. Gulped down a sharp breath of air that tasted like metal, still. The car rumbled so familiarly, and offered him a comfort. Even Cas' presence buzzing in the backseat felt amazingly like home. The radio played the news.

"There was a power surge about twenty minutes ago, caused by what seems to be a freak thunder storm in the outskirts of Lebanon, Kansas. Lightning is believed to have hit a power line in an abandoned warehouse, causing a violent explosion. Police helicopters have footage showing the blast radius, and the surrounding area is completely decimated. Trees leveled, the road destroyed. No remnants of the building other than rubble." The reporter paused. "Around the same time as the final lightning strike, mass hysteria plagued entirely random groups of people all at once. A crowd collapsed in downtown Lawrence, and several witnesses report that they all began to glow so brightly they had to turn away. The police think it may be some kind of group hallucination caused by contaminated water or food."

Dean snorted, and twisted the knob. "Thunderstruck" blared from the speakers deafeningly.

Sam rolled his eyes, and glanced out the window.

At the edge of the pines along the side of the road—standing taller and straighter the further they drove from the blast area—a lone buck with reddish fur and a black rack kept pace with them, leaping over any obstacles it met. Both Sam and Castiel stared. It was a beautiful creature and its antlers spread like a tree's branches. Its flank flashed in the light of the sunrise, and quite suddenly it turned into the forest and disappeared into the deep shadows there.

With a soft breath, Sam looked down at his lap.

He clutched, in his hands, a rumpled blue envelope, and smooth sheet of plain white paper, with words scrawled across in the hasty and childish hand of someone who had never really had to write things on his own. Deep red ink, like cherry juice.

Three words, big and crooked and a little wobbly, signed with the simpler sigil of the Archangel Gabriel.

_I love you._


End file.
